Ongoing assessment is an integral element in effective instruction. Assessing for learning means acquiring information about your students’ current level of functioning and skill knowledge, along with information about interests and affective factors, so that you can provide effective instruction. With their schooling having been interrupted by COVID-19, it is more important than ever to find out which skills students have learned and which skills need to be developed.
Before teaching phonics, for instance, administer an assessment, such as the Phonics Inventory that indicates what skills the students has learned and which skills need to be taught. This provides a starting point, which can be adjusted depending on the students’ performance. Monitoring students’ progress and making necessary adjustments are critical.
early/emergent reading
Key skills needed for early/emergent reading include letter knowledge and phonological awareness.
Letter Knowledge
Letter names are taught in preschool, so an expectation is that students would know at least 10 lowercase letter names by the beginning of kindergarten and all by the end of the school year. Young students tend to know more uppercase than lowercase letters.
Letter names can be assessed with the Letter Names Test in which students are assessed individually and name uppercase and lowercase letters. Students who have difficulty identifying letters might be given the Letter Recognition Test in which they pick from four letters the one named by the teacher.
Phonological/ Phonemic Awareness
Critical phonemic awareness skills include the ability to detect and isolate beginning sounds. The Detecting Beginning Sounds Test assesses the ability to note words that begin with the same sound. The Isolating Beginning Sounds Test requires identifying beginning sounds in words.
An extensive collection of assessments of phonological awareness and letter knowledge can be found in the first chapter of my text, Reading Success for All Students: Using Formative Assessments to Guide Instruction and Intervention (Jossey-Bass).
Other sources for emergent literacy assessment include:
• PALS (Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening
• Acadience Reading™ (DIBELS NEXT) Offers free downloads.
foundational skills
The Foundational Skills Screener estimates students’ foundational skills from beginning consonants to multisyllabic words.
Beginning Consonants
The Beginning Consonant Correspondences assessment, which can be administered to groups or individuals, can be used to assess students’ knowledge of initial consonant letter sounds.
Word Patterns
The Phonics Inventory, which assesses single-syllable patterns, is geared to the scope and sequence of today’s major programs and can be used to estimate which basic phonics have been mastered and which need instruction. The Group Phonics Inventory uses a fill-in-the-blank sentence format so that groups of students can be assessed.
Sight Word Fluency
Word Reading Fluency is an assessment of students’ ability to read high-frequency (sight) words. It is drawn from the 500 most frequently occurring words. By the end of first grade, students should be able to read 45-50 words in a minute’s time.
Syllabic Analysis
The Graduated Syllable Survey assesses students’ ability to read increasingly difficult syllables. It can be used to determine which syllable types need to be taught. The Group Graduated Syllable Survey uses a fill-in-the-blank sentence format so that groups of students can be assessed.
comprehension
To get a sense of students’ ability to read and respond to complex text, administer sample items released by PARCC, Smarter Balanced, the Practice Test created by Smarter Balanced, or sample tests released by your state department of education, if your state is using its own tests.
You also might use the sample items released by NAEP for grades 4, 8, and 12, which assess many of the same skills advocated by Common Core.