This occasional publication presents three articles: "The identification of children needing compensatory education," which reviews critically some of the major research findings on approaches used in identifying the disadvantaged, and suggests that the designation of educational priority areas perhaps may not necessarily be the best method of channeling meager resources where most needed; "The 'Tell-a-story' technique for identifying young children likely to experience reading difficulties," reporting on one very specific technique of value in early identification of children at risk, proposes a modified scoring method which might improve the usefulness of the technique; and, "The development of phonic skills in infant school children--a preliminary study," which presents an inquiry into an aspect of reading progress in the infant school, and deals with exploratory work aimed at measuring children's understanding of word recognition skills.(KG)