Abstract
In Czech language as a language with transparent orthography there usually does not occur such severe early difficulties in acquiring the written system that dyslexia would be diagnosed immediately. Actually, dyslexia is predominantly diagnosed in the 2nd and 3rd grade of primary school.
It is well accepted today that it is worth to pay attention not only to the diagnosis of dyslexia and its reeducation but especially to early intervention work with children at risk of dyslexia. This concept calls for getting more information about predictors of reading and also about the development and its variability of early literacy among pupils' population.
Unfortunately, we do not know much about this phenomenon in the case of Czech language environment. The aim of the presented project is to provide some of the missing information by mapping the variability of early literacy of children with risk of learning disability.
Children (N=95) classified as children with family risk of dyslexia (FR), children with specific language impairments (SLI) and typically developing children (TD) were compared on measures of reading, writing and language skills in the 1st and 2nd grade. In the 3rd grade all three cohorts were tested with a diagnostic battery Caravolas, Volín (2007) in order to identify the extent of the difficulties in reading and writing and to assess the diagnosis of dyslexia.
Also parents were asked to complete a questionnaire mapping the children difficulties and their attitude towards reading and writing activities. Data analysis (now still in progress) should answer the question which children from families with hereditary burden are most at risk and what is relationship between SLI and dyslexia, how the groups differ from TD children, how the difficulties in reading and writing arise and which functions are necessary to be monitored and trained.