A Developmentally Appropriate Test of Kinder/School Readiness

Abstract

This study compared the accuracy of the Test of Pretend Play, or ToPP (Lewis & Boucher, 1997) as a screening test for kinder/school ‘readiness’ with a traditional screening test, the FirstSTEP (Miller, 1993). The ToPP and FirstSTEP (cognitive and language sub-tests) were administered to 58 preschoolers (aged 42–67 months) who were recruited from regional kindergartens in Victoria. A classificational analysis of the results found that the ToPP was a relatively ‘sensitive’ screening device for developmental problems, detecting 80 per cent of those children who had been identified by their teachers as having such problems. This result compared favourably with the FirstSTEP, and suggests that preschoolers pretend play, as assessed by the ToPP, may provide a useful alternative to traditional screening tests for kinder/school ‘readiness’.

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