Wake County school administrators hope to get a grant to encourage community participation in an early childhood literacy initiative.

During Thursday's Wake County school board economically disadvantaged student performance task force meeting, administrators said they've applied for a grant from The Campaign For Grade-Level Reading.

The Campaign focuses on closing reading achievement gaps between low-income and middle-income students. A major focus of the group is for students to have reading proficiency by the end of third grade.

Your child's elementary school might soon be using a new screening system to assess reading skills.

Staff briefed school board members last week on their plan to begin using the DIBELS Data System to assess the reading skills of students and hopefully intervene before problems get worse.

While staff is recommending that elementary schools use it for the 2009-10 school year, it's not being mandated. That drew some concerns from board members.