Design and validation of the Emergent Literacy Domains Development Test (ELDT) for Pre-school

Abstract

This paper describes the design and validation of the Emergent Literacy Domains Development Test (ELDT), aimed at evaluating emergent literacy skills of Chilean pre-school pupils. The instrumental case study involved a sample of 210 children from low, low-middle, and middle socioeconomic levels. The factorial analysis confirmed the proposed model, based on four pillars: phonological awareness, alphabet knowledge, print awareness and emergent writing, with Cronbach's alpha reliability of.79 and an omega coefficient of.82 for the total test. The results show that the test presents an optimal factorial structure and internal consistency for the assessment of emergent literacy among Chilean pre-school pupils.