<p>Chinese character acquisition holds significant importance in the language development of school-age children. Despite increasing attention towards Chinese character acquisition measurement, there remains a lack of reliable and valid instruments, especially those tailored for developmentally appropriate use in the current primary classrooms in mainland China. This study aims to address this gap through the development of the Chinese Character Acquisition Screening Test (CCAST), an assessment grounded in a semantic-based approach and specifically designed for primary school students in mainland China. The CCAST was developed with test items selected to cover a range of difficulty levels while ensuring good discriminative power. The study involved a total of 3,433 students across Grades 1 to 6. Preliminary validation results demonstrate that the CCAST is both reliable and valid for assessing Chinese character acquisition among primary school-aged children. The study also underscores the practical applications of the CCAST, addresses its limitations, and suggests directions for future research to enhance the assessment of Chinese character acquisition.</p>