Intervention study of literacy skills and interest in reading
(LuKiVa)

The aim is for all children in the participating daycare centre to participate in the assessments. The tasks are designed so that the vast majority of children can participate in the assessment without the need to modify the tasks. However, children are different and the staff carrying out the assessment has significant responsibility and freedom to adapt the assessment to the situation if necessary.

This guide goes through the assessment tasks, the requirements and recommendations set by the tasks, how to adapt/assist the tasks to different needs, or even leave some of the tasks out altogether. In unclear cases, it is a good idea to try the task, even if it ultimately fails.

Most tasks progress from easier to more difficult parts, so for almost all children the last parts are challenging or even too difficult. However, this is important for the research, so that the later assessment can detect the progress of the children’s skills. Focusing on encouraging feedback towards the child is important – even for tasks that the child does not master or cannot complete for various reasons.

At the end of the assessment, you will be asked about any factors that may have influenced the assessment process or the child’s performance. Remember to fill out the questionnaire carefully! It will help us to take these factors into account when evaluating the results. The questionnaire will ask rough yes-no questions about the following:

• Pervasive developmental delay
• Language delay
• Other factor related to language skills (e.g. multilingualism)
• Visual and/or hearing impairments
• Motor difficulties
• Attention/concentration difficulties
• Other factors
• Presence of an assistant during the assessment (if yes, did the assistant use a language other than Finnish that the child knew?)

Children in need of individual support

Children receiving individual support represent a very wide range of children with different abilities, so it is not useful to provide detailed instructions. Instead, it is better to think about what kind of skill requirements each task has and how to take them into account in the assessment situation.

The tasks measure children’s language and comprehension skills, as well as their reading skills. The tasks are answered either orally or by pointing to an image on the tablet screen. Thus, performance in different tasks is mainly influenced by five factors: sensory functions, general comprehension, concentration and attention, language skills, and motor and/or fine motor skills. Individually, there may also be other factors or situational factors, for which you can answer “yes” to the “other factors” section of the questionnaire.

The table below summarizes the requirements set by different tasks. Based on the table, it can be assessed whether it is justified to omit the task in question in the assessment for children with individual support.

Task	Linguistic production	Linguistic understanding	Motor performance
1. Vocabulary	–	Moderate	Moderate
2. Phonological awareness	–	High	Moderate
3. Letter recognition	High	Moderate	Moderate
4. Literacy	High	Moderate	–

1. Sensory functions

If the child’s vision and hearing are not sufficient to complete the tasks, the tasks can be left out if they are not suitable. At the end, a questionnaire is filled out with information about the vision or hearing impairment.

2. General comprehension

Despite the ability to produce spoken language and communicate linguistically, some children’s ability to understand linguistic instructions or to perceive new task situations may be clearly so weak that the assessment result cannot be considered reliable due to difficulties in understanding the task. In this case, the assessor makes a decision as to whether some tasks can be attempted where appropriate. Longer tasks have automatic cut-off points if the child repeatedly answers incorrectly. At the end, a questionnaire is filled in to provide information on broad-based developmental delays.

3. Concentration and attention

If a child is unable to complete more than a few tasks at a time due to concentration and attention challenges, more breaks can be taken between tasks or the assessment can even be spread over several days. If the challenges have significantly affected the child’s performance, information about the difficulties with attention/concentration is filled out in the questionnaire.

The tasks are mainly very short and the biggest challenge is to get the child to focus on the task. It is important that the assessor makes sure that the child has listened attentively to the task. Interest in completing the tasks can be increased by using voice emphasis and expressing your own interest in the tasks and the child’s skills. Encouraging feedback is important to maintain interest!

4. Linguistic skills

The table shows the extent to which tasks require linguistic production and comprehension of spoken language. If the child is unable to produce spoken language, tasks that require oral responses can be skipped. Similarly, if the child does not understand spoken language, tasks where the task cannot be modeled without language can be skipped. The use of supporting gestures in the task is permitted.

If the child has difficulties with either producing or understanding language, information about the delay in language development is filled in the questionnaire. The child does not need to have a diagnosis of developmental language disorder, but the kindergarten’s assessment of the child’s language difficulties is sufficient. In this case, the difficulties themselves have clearly affected the completion of the tasks, because the child has not been able to demonstrate their true competence orally or they did not understand the tasks.

(Note: Language issues related to the assessment of S2 students are presented separately below.)

5. Motor and/or fine motor skills

In some tasks, the child is expected to give the answer by pointing with his or her finger. If the child has motor or structural physical difficulties that prevent him or her from doing this, the child can be assisted in some of the tasks. At the end, information about the motor difficulties is filled in the questionnaire. If the child has a personal assistant at the daycare center who has participated in completing the tasks in the assessment, information about the assistant’s presence is also recorded.

Assessment of S2 children

If the S2 child’s language skills are sufficient to understand the instructions for the tasks, their assessment can be carried out normally. If the assessor believes that language deficiencies have affected the understanding of the tasks in such a way that the child has not been able to complete the tasks properly, this is recorded on the questionnaire.

Note. However, this section does not assess the child’s performance per se, but only whether the language skills are sufficient to understand the tasks. Even if the child performs poorly on the task, no information about other factors related to language skills is recorded if the child has nevertheless been able to understand the tasks sufficiently well. The assessor uses his or her own judgment here.

If the child’s Finnish language skills are not sufficient to understand the tasks, an interpreter can be used to help, if one is normally available at the daycare center. This information is also noted at the end of the survey. If an assistant is not available and the child’s language skills are not sufficient to understand the tasks, only tasks that can be completed using practice tasks and modeling without a common language can be completed.