As part of a two-year project that examined the processes by which children initially approach the reading task, a screening test was designed to aid in the selection of the four kindergarten children who were to participate in the project. Consisting of seven parts, the test asked each child to do the following tasks: write his/her name; isolate the initial vowels and consonant sounds of selected words; pick out the grapheme representing the initial phoneme; supply a corresponding phoneme after being shown a grapheme; read words in three contexts; and read four sentences composed from the words in the previous section. Data from the screening test yielded a quantifiable measure of the kindergarten child's information, descriptive information about the child's understanding of the varied pretest tasks, and an informal account of the child's methods of acquiring information. (Tables are appended.) (MAI)