But for many years it did not provide an analytic tool to evaluate readiness before any instruction. It was mostly applied ex post facto. If a child can read, she was ready. If he cannot read, he was not ready. It was not predictive, only an explanation.

Today the following skills may indicate whether a child is ready to learn to read:

• Phonemic awareness (the ability to distinguish individual sounds of letters)
• Age-appropriate oral language development and vocabulary
• Understanding of the alphabetic principle (letters represent the sounds of language)
• Ability to distinguish shapes (visual discrimination)
• Ability to identify at least some letters of the alphabet.
• Understanding of basic print concepts (for example, printed text represents spoken words; spaces between words are meaningful; pages written in English are read left to right, starting at the top of the page).