Beyond Age: Screening–Grading Misalignment and Sociodemographic Inequities in Grade 1 Reading Outcomes

Early identification of reading difficulties depends on how schools assess children’s literacy, particularly when standardized screening and classroom grading may not fully converge. Using data from 879 Portuguese Grade 1 students nested within 19 school clusters, we compared a standardized end-of-Grade 1 reading fluency screening measure (Teste de Rastreio de Leitura; TRL) with teachers’ official literacy grades and examined sociodemographic predictors of both outcomes. Multilevel models with random intercepts for school clusters were estimated after multiple imputation to address missingness. School-entry age was not significantly associated with either reading outcome. In contrast, socioeconomic disadvantage (School Social Action) and lower mothers’ education were consistently associated with lower TRL performance and lower teachers’ official literacy grades. Alignment analyses in the subgroup with both measures available (N = 418) showed a statistically significant but moderate correspondence between TRL percentile bands and teacher grades. Additional discrepancy analyses indicated that teacher grades were often higher than the corresponding TRL-based classification, with overgrading emerging as the most frequent discrepancy pattern. These findings suggest that relying solely on classroom grading may lead to different classifications of children’s reading proficiency and may obscure some struggling readers. Integrating standardized screening with teacher information and contextual indicators may strengthen equity-oriented early identification and intervention in Grade 1.