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Screening Francophone children for school readiness across important developmental domains is crucial if their needs are to be attended to in a timely fashion. The universal screening instrument Early Years Evaluation Teacher Assessment (EYE-TA) is available in French and known as Évaluation de la petite enfance appreciation de l enseignante (ÉPE-AE). This study is the first to validate the psychometric properties of the ÉPE-AE and to discuss its validity in the context in which it is used. Three questions guided this research: 1) To what extent are the results of the ÉPE-AE reliable? 2) To what extent are the results of the ÉPE-AE valid? and 3) Which items, if any, in the ÉPE-AE demonstrate linguistic bias relative to the original English version? It is concluded that the ÉPE-EA is a highly reliable, valid and unbiased assessment relative to its English version. As such it can be used with confidence as a universal screening test to assess Francophone children s development as they begin school. This study is useful to early childhood educators, educational psychologists, kindergarten and resource teachers, and school administrators.

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Robert Laurie, PhD is Adjunct Professor at the Canadian Research Institute for Social Policy, University of New Brunswick, Canada and Project Director for the Confident Learners project, an early literacy initiative designed to develop the reading skills of young children in First Nations schools in Canada.

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