A Narrative Review of School-Based Screening Tools for Dyslexia Among Students
Frontiers in Public Health
Bakhti, R., Fonseka, N., et al. (2025).
Frontiers in Public Health, 13, 1654470.
<div>This narrative review investigates school-based screening tools for dyslexia in children, 4 to 16 years old. </div>
National Institute for Health and Care Research (United Kingdom)
2010 to August 2024
<div>Published primary English-language studies (Not further specified)</div>
142 studies on screening tools, with 16 studies specifically investigating dyslexia
<div>Across dyslexia screening tools, sensitivity was consistently higher than specificity (5 studies). Specific findings included the following:</div>
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<li>The Dyslexia Marker Test for Children demonstrated the highest sensitivity (90.6%).</li>
<li>A screening protocol combining seven tools achieved a sensitivity of 89%. Tools included the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processes, Rapid Automatized Naming, Alphabetic knowledge, Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, Word reading, Woodcock Johnson-Revised, and the Primary Reading Inventory Scale.</li>
<li>The Hong Kong Specific Learning Difficulties Behavior Checklist for Junior and Secondary students yielded the highest specificity at 81%, followed by the Dyslexia Marker Test for Children with a specificity of 70%.</li>
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<div>Reported barriers to the use of screening tools included time constraints, the requirement for trained personnel, and variability in teacher familiarity with the measures.</div>
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<div>Limitations of this review include the lack of gray literature, the potential exclusion of relevant tools not regularly used in schools, the inability to generalize findings or make direct comparisons due to the variety of screening tools, the diversity of school models/settings, and the lack of socio-demographic data. Additional research is needed to investigate the use of screening tools across different populations and to increase collaboration between researchers and educators of students with dyslexia.</div>
