Uno strumento per comprendere le difficoltà di apprendimento degli alunni stranieri

The growing presence of students from migrant cultural backgrounds in Italian schools has changed classrooms, giving them a multicultural and intercultural aspect. This could mean a challenge for the concept of inclusion in educational contexts. This situation, very heterogeneous due to the various native places of foreign students, is often associated with the presence of learning difficulties. Recognising a possible learning disorder (Law no. 170/2010) in students from migrant cultural backgrounds is made more difficult by the lack of specific screening measures. This paper aims to present a preliminary report of a tool tested on a sample of Italian and foreign primary school children in order to evaluate their reading ability, regardless of the language they have as mother tongue. The tool is conceived as a preliminary screening in schools to understand if the difficulties of the students are related to the low L2 language proficiency or if they are the manifestation of other problems to be investigated through medical-diagnostic tests.