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of the teacher's knowledge of phonological awareness and its importance in the steps towards literacy. Ideally such a screening tool should enable specific intervention to take place and it was interesting to note that the support for learning teachers all said that the pupil's results would be helpful in planning future intervention .

In the questionnaire, 73% of teachers believed that the pupils' results would help to plan the next steps in their teaching. 16% of teachers stated that results would help to plan next steps to some extent. 9% did not think it would help plan next steps and 2& did not respond. Many teachers referred to the types of intervention that they would be putting into place. All interviewees thought that the screening test was a useful tool that could be used to plan specific intervention. Responses included:

'We have used the results to help plan our language better.' HT40WI. 'Being able to provide programmes of work more to their needs as opposed to just general phonics lessons. Definitely good for planning next steps.' PT44O. 'We used the results when planning language.' CT40WI. 'I would take the mistakes, the weaknesses that I found and try to work on them.' SfL22WI.

One classroom teacher stated that it helped her set homework: 'I was able to use that information for their homework and focus on their sounds going home.'CT27WI.

Two teachers felt that it would have been beneficial to plan specific intervention if they had had any pupils with difficulties; this was good to see that they acknowledged the test's potential even though the results showed that no pupils had difficulties. One principal teacher went on to describe how she would use the results to discuss the teacher's use of the phonics scheme - when and how often it was being used in the class.

While responses were generally very positive, there was one principal teacher who felt that some more information or background knowledge on what each subtest was testing would be needed to plan next steps. Further into the interview, however, she thought: 'in terms of targeting support in an immersion class, which is difficult, that it (the test) would be very helpful.' PT1O. She clarified her previous comment by saying that if each subtest could be described more specifically, for example, 'this element tests whether a child can hear the rhyme identified' then she could find something specific to use or make up something herself 'to plug the gap.'

67% of teachers found the results informative. 18% thought that the results were informative to some extent. 6% did not think that the results were informative and 9% did not respond.

This question attempted to find out whether pupils' performance in class was reflected in the scores of the screening tool. Had there been a great deal of difference then it could be said that the screening tool was testing something other than what it was designed for. It was hoped that scores of phonological awareness would reflect a pupil's attainment in literacy. For the most part there was agreement on the point that test results corroborated achievement .

In the questionnaire, 67% of teachers believed that the screening test accurately tested pupils' phonological skills. 27% stated that it tested pupils' phonological skills to some extent. No teachers thought that pupils' phonological skills had not been accu