The academic achievement gap has been a challenging problem in the United States for decades. School readiness screening as students enter kindergarten is the first step to identifying students with academic problems, then providing intervention for identified students before they begin to fall behind. In response to the achievement gap problem, the purpose of this study was to help practitioners more accurately identify at-risk students with a school readiness screener at the beginning of their academic careers, thereby intervening early and preventing later school failure.

Study 1 examined the screening accuracy of a school readiness screener, the Kindergarten Student Entrance Profile (KSEP), for N = 224 kindergarten students. End of kindergarten reading and math achievement data were also collected, and ROC analyses were used to determine the screening accuracy of the KSEP at various risk levels. Findings indicated that the KSEP was moderately accurate at predicting both reading and math achievement.

In addition to examining the screening accuracy of the KSEP alone, ROC analyses were used to determine whether combining the KSEP with a direct assessment (Supplement A) improved screening accuracy. Results from ROC analyses suggested that combining KSEP and Supplement A indeed improved screening accuracy for reading and math achievement. Although the combined measures tended to accurately identify high and low performing students, a significant percentage of students in the middle were still misidentified.

Based upon the findings of Study 1, the purpose of Study 2 was to examine the characteristics of misidentified students. The differences in characteristics between misidentified and accurately identified students highlighted whether Supplement A could be modified to more accurately differentiate between at-risk and not at-risk students. Findings indicated that adding items to measure verbal ability and English language proficiency may not improve screening accuracy, but that items that measure behavioral and emotional functioning may help to accurately identify not at-risk students.

In sum, this study provides valuable information on the screening accuracy of the KSEP and Supplement A, including information to guide future development. Implications for research and practice are presented, in particular for using the KSEP as part of a multigating assessment framework.