Information on monitoring and assessing children's literacy knowledge to ensure that teaching is responsive to their needs.
When children first start school it is important to find out what they already know. This will help you pinpoint where to start a child along the scope and sequence framework for the Ready to Read Phonics Plus books.
The Alphabet Test, GKR Phonemic Awareness Test, and Bryant Test will identify what children know and any gaps they may have in their letter-sound knowledge. The assessment process map below provides guidance for using these tests and gives an entry point along the scope and sequence framework.
The assessment process map sets out the assessment activities you can you use to find out what children know and where they should start on the Phonics Plus books. It also supports you to use 10 week check-ins to monitor the progress of students as they move through the stages and onto Colour Wheel texts.
You may find that some children may need to continue to develop their phonological awareness before they use the Phonics Plus books.
Purpose
The Alphabet test measures children’s recognition of letters and their ability to provide the sounds they make.
Instructions
Give the child a copy of the alphabet test and say:
Move to the next letter and repeat. Be sure that the letters are read left to right across the page. Do the upper case first because these tend to be easier for children.
Scoring of the alphabet test
Use the score sheet to record the child's responses and to note the letters that the child is confused about.
Purpose
The GKR Phonemic Awareness Test measures a child’s ability to identify, blend, and manipulate the sounds of speech. This test is a version of the Gough Kastler Roper test.
Instructions
This version of the test uses only the first sub-test from the whole tool. The first sub-test requires the child to say each phoneme separately, for example, c-a-t, and then tell you what the word is (cat).
Purpose
The Adapted Bryant Test assesses a child’s knowledge of letter-sound relationships by asking the child to read up to 50 pseudowords (non-words).
Instructions
Explain that these are not real words. They are alien words spoken by children from another planet. They speak a different language to us.
Encourage the child to sound out the words if they can, but to make a real word. Do not just say the sounds of the letters.
If the child finds it too difficult and makes more than 10 consecutive errors, pause the assessment. However, if they are happy to keep reading, they can do so. It might give you an idea of how they approach decoding the words. If you do stop, ask the child to look at the rest of the words and read out any that can be decoded.
Scoring
Score the word as correct if the child pronounces the made-up words as shown in the pronunciation guide provided.
Write down the error if the child makes a mistake (for example, reads “buf” as “but”). Then score out of 50.
The scoring diagnostic guide provided outlines the phonics subskills covered in each group of questions. It will assist you identify the letter-sound relationships the child still needs to learn.
Sounding out unknown words with Professor Tom Nicholson.
When using the scope and sequence framework to support early reading, it is vital that teaching responds to children’s learning needs. Grouping of children needs to be flexible. Children’s progress should be reviewed on a weekly basis to ensure they continue to learn new sounds and apply what they already know. Your day-to-day observations and conversations with learners will inform the decisions you make about your reading groups.
Updated on: 22 Nov 2021
