L’importanza dei prerequisiti e dello screening precoce nella scuola dell’infanzia

This paper aims to underline the importance of some cognitive competencies, called learning precursors that are involved in the acquisition of reading and writing abilities, such as: knowledge of letters, phonological awareness, rapid automatized naming (RAN), phonological memory and visual processing. Several researches demonstrated how these abilities are important at pre-school level, in particular for the prevention of the development of scholastic difficulties or specific learn- ing disabilities in the following academic career of children. Moreover, specific educational training aimed at enhancing cognitive precursors increase or retrieve reading and writing abilities. In this panorama, it is very essential to reflect on the importance of screening at early pre-school level and on assessment tools related to it. For this reason, the present review describes the main psycho- metric instruments for the evaluation of reading and writing precursors in preschoolers of 5 years, which were published in Italy from 1999 until now.