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IntroductionThe years preceding school entry are pivotal for children to develop fundamental skills that bolster their learning in literacy and math in the following years. Skills like counting and subitizing stand as key predictors of future math abilities. Hence, the availability of universal screening tools is vital to promptly identify children who are lacking in these skills, allowing for tailored classroom practices to meet their needs. This study aimed to develop a mathematical screening tool and assess its psychometric properties.MethodsThe tool encompasses both group and individual tasks, to evaluate counting, cardinality, subitizing, quantity discrimination, addition, and subtraction. The tool was administered twice to 257 children, aged 5-6, in their final year of kindergarten in Portugal, at both the start and end of the school year.ResultsThe findings reveal that the tasks generally present a low level of difficulty, especially by the end of kindergarten. Factor analysis demonstrated an adequate structure, and all dimensions showed high internal consistency (>0.80). There was a medium-to-high intercorrelation among the various tasks. Correlations between task scores at the beginning and end of the school year were high. Furthermore, scores across all tasks correlated with math achievement in the first grade of primary education.DiscussionThese outcomes suggest that the tool is both valid and reliable, making it a useful resource for assessing and intervening in math skills during the critical years before school entry.

Fluency is a central skill for successful reading. Research has provided evidence that systematic reading fluency interventions can be effective. However, research is scarce on the effects of interventions delivered remotely versus face-to-face. This study investigated the efficacy of a systematic and standardized intervention for promoting reading fluency in third-grade students (N = 207) during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study had a pretest, posttest, and follow-up design, with two intervention groups (remote vs face-to-face) and a control group. The intervention groups experienced 20 intervention sessions (2 sessions per week), each lasting approximately 50 min. Word reading accuracy, text reading accuracy, and fluency were measured in the three rounds of assessment. In both intervention groups, all measures of reading showed gains from pretest to posttest. The results also suggested that the efficacy of the intervention was similar in the remote and face-to-face modalities. These findings highlight the relevance of systematic interventions in increasing reading fluency and support the use of remote interventions as an adequate alternative to face-to-face interventions.