DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF A TEACHER RATING SCALE PRIMARY SCHOOL CHILDREN WITH READING DISABILITY

This study was designed to evaluate the internal structure and discriminant evidence of a teacher rating scale for screening children with reading disability. A 16 items teacher rating scale was developed to provide a brief screening measure for reading disability. The scale ratings were obtained from teachers (n=8) of 280 Arabic speaking children divided into two groups: typical readers (n=194), and disabled readers (n=86). Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analyses revealed four correlated but separable dimensions that were labelled word recognition, reading comprehension, writing, and memory. The Factorial Confirmatory Analysis (FCA) provided a reasonable fit to the data. Children rated as having severe scores in the scale, gained lower scores on objective measures of reading decoding and comprehension skills. In addition, the sensitivity of the scale was acceptable. These results suggest that the developed scale may provide a useful method to screen for reading disability in Arabic children in primary school.