Design of a screening test for identifying reading difficult students in Malayalam and validation thereof among boys is made to help schools proactively intervene with such students. A battery of tests developed based on extant literature on screening tests, reviewed difficulties in reading Malayalam, and discrimination power of the draft tests is used. 98 Reading Difficult and 327 Normal Readers in grade 5 to 7 were identified with fourfold criterion. Scored by cut-points, the battery of tests on letter pronunciation, letter sound recognition, initial sound fluency, word recognition, phoneme segmentation, word fluency, oral reading, and hearing comprehension significantly screen upper primary reading difficult boys with around 90% sensitivity and specificity