Among the United Nations' global goals is to provide inclusive and equitable quality education at all levels for all people by 2030 so that they "acquire the knowledge and skills needed to exploit opportunities and to participate fully in society" (UN General Assembly 2015, p.7). Successful educational processes require developmental guidance for children's domain-specific development, especially during transitions, as, for example, the transition to elementary school is a sensitive stage in which children are particularly vulnerable (Fabian & Dunlop 2007) and research findings point to the great importance of preschool domain-specific competencies for further educational success (Duncan et al. 2007). In order to enable a sustainable educational process for each child, the individual learning development of the children should be focused on, especially in heterogeneous inclusive contexts (Petriwskyj, Thorpe & Tayler 2014). In this context, an individual, domain-specific learning development analysis represents the basis for continuous inclusive support (Watkins 2007). Following this assumption, the diagnostic instrument ILEA-T (Geiling, Liebers, & Prengel 2015) can be used to capture domain-specific competencies in the transition from kindergarten to school. Yet, this instrument cannot adequately represent the abilities and development of children at the lower levels of competence. However, individual support of the children's educational and developmental processes is of high importance, especially for children with significant domain-specific learning and developmental challenges (SLDC), in order to enable them to acquire literacy skills of high quality and thus their participation in the general curriculum and in their environment using sign and writing systems (Erickson, Hatch & Clendon 2010). For the group of children with SLDC whose competencies are at or below the first two competency levels in the domain of early literacy according to the ILEA-T-level model (Geiling et al., 2015), there is a lack of diagnostic instruments with which their competencies can be captured in such a way that suitable educational support can be derived from them (Liebers, Geiling, Prengel 2020). Furthermore, diagnostic approaches and support in the domain of early literacy are often considered of secondary importance by pedagogical professionals (Smidt 2012, Korntheuer 2014) and existing literary competencies of children are often over- or underestimated (Dollinger 2013). Therefore, the aim of the current research project ILEA-Basis-T is to detect the domain-specific preschool competencies of children in a resource- and support-oriented manner and to derive suitable support suggestions. The focus is on early mathematical abilities and emergent literacy skills as well as on bio-psycho-social well-being. Domain-specific diagnostic tools and support suggestions are being developed and tested in the project in cooperation with partners in practice. This paper focuses on the fit of the Emergent Literacy diagnostic tool for children with SLDC. Emergent literacy includes all reading and writing behaviors and understandings that precede and develop into conventional reading and writing (Sulzby, Branz & Buhle 1993). This paper will address the content of the emergent literacy model and how emergent literacy is operationalized and validated as a diagnostic tool. The question underlying this paper is: To what extent do the scales of the trial version of the diagnostic tool for early reading skills meet traditional quality criteria and how time-efficient, developmentally sensitive and fair are they with respect to the basal skills of children? Therefore, initial findings from piloting and testing will be discussed.

This study is initially a classic validation study. Taking into account theory and the state of research, emergent literacy was modeled as a construct, a first version of the diagnostic tools in early reading was developed, and piloted with n = 15 children. Subsequently, the item selection was revised and integrated into six "reading pictures". Items from a total of ten different scales are integrated into these (Visual Awareness, Reading Emoticons, Reading Iconic Signs, Reading Road Signs, Reading Symbols, Reading Figurative Logos, Reading Letter-Bound Logos, Recognizing Letters Among Other Signs, Reading Letters, Reading Whole Words). These will be trialed in March 2023 with n = 80 children in partner kindergartens by project staff. In addition to the newly developed diagnostic tools, other test procedures are being tested with regard to their suitability for subsequent determination of construct validity. To determine convergent validity, several scales from the Giessener Screening for the Assessment of Extended Reading Ability (GISC-EL, Koch, Euker & Kuhl 2016) and from EuLe 4-5 Capturing Narrative and Reading Competencies in 4- to 5-year-old Children (Meindl & Jungmann 2019) will be used. Furthermore, it will be tested to what extent the divergent validity can be tested in the target group with the help of the Potsdam Intelligence Test for Preschoolers (PITVA, Wyschkon & Esser 2019) or the Basic Diagnostic of Circumscribed Developmental Disorders in Preschoolers - Version III, Subtest 1 (BUEVA-III, Esser & Wyschkon 2016). After final revision, the "reading pictures" will be validated with n = 180 children. This paper will include the results of the trial in spring 2023.

The Pilot showed that a variety of items could be "read" by the children with SLDC. Some items had to be replaced because they were too difficult. Across all scales, the mean item difficulty was p = .41. The revised selection of items in six "reading pictures" is to be tested in a standardized survey situation with n = 80 children of the target group. Based on this, the quality of the scales and items is examined by using item analyses and a confirmatory factor analysis. At the same time, it is reported to what extent the scales prove to be suitable for making statements about convergent and divergent validity regarding the specific target group. These data will be discussed with a focus on the extent to which the scales can meet traditional validity criteria and how developmentally sensitive and fair (Watkins 2007) they are with regard to the basal competencies of children with SLDC. Furthermore, the data will be embedded in the context of the research project ILEA-Basis-T. In an insight into the further goals of the project, the prospects of this inclusive, everyday-integrated approach to diagnostics and support in the transition from kindergarten to school are presented for the international goal of inclusive and equitable quality of education at all levels for all people (UN General Assembly 2015). Transitions represent vulnerable stages regardless of national systems (Fabian & Dunlop 2007). Through individualized attendance of educational and developmental processes, children are given the opportunity to acquire domain-specific competencies of high quality at an early stage and thereby participate in the general curriculum and in their everyday world.

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