Assessment of Emergent Literacy Skills | Back to Assessment

PALS Pre-K Research has identified emergent literacy skills that are predictive of future reading success in school.  USDE requires Even Start programs to use Section II of PALS-PreK, an assessment that measures preschoolers' developing knowledge of important literacy fundamentals.  Texas LEARNS strongly encourages Texas Even Start Projects to administer the entire PALS-PreK assessment in order to obtain a complete picture of each child’s emergent literacy skills in order to meet each child’s needs.

PALS-PreK is a literacy screening that measures Name Writing Ability, upper and lower-case Alphabet Recognition, Letter Sounds and Beginning Sound Production,  Print and Word Awareness, Rhyme Awareness and Nursery Rhyme Awareness.  PALS-PreK was designed for four-year-olds as they enter prekindergarten and can be administered in the fall, to help guide instruction, and in the spring to measure progress in the prek year.

TFLRC staff member administering PALS-PreK to a four-year-old.

Read about the PALS-PreK Tasks and view videoclips of each task:
Read through the tasks presented on this page and view each videoclip to see the task assessment in action. Although programs are required to assess four year olds with Section II Alphabet Knowledge only, it is strongly recommended that the entire assessment be used.

View the PALS-PreK Teacher Checklist of Literacy Practices:
This checklist on the PALS-PreK website presents different activities that help to foster literacy development in preschool-age children. Pre-school teachers can use this list to evaluate their own literacy practices by checking each box that applies to their classrooms and looking at unchecked boxes for additional ideas.

View the TFLRC webcast on how to administer and score PALS Pre-K!