5 Helpful Literacy Assessment Tools for K-2
When you hear about the science of reading, you often think about instruction, but sometimes, the missing piece is the assessment. We must use assessment to drive our instruction. Sometimes knowing where to start instruction is our biggest battle.
Before we can dive in, we need to keep a few points in mind:
There are so many assessments out there and they serve so many different purposes.We must make sure that the assessments we are using are the ones that we need and are tightly connected to our instruction.We want to make sure that our data can answer the questions we have about our students and can help drive our instruction.What types of assessments are out there and how can they help me?
Universal Screeners (also known as benchmarks)-These are assessments that we do with all our students. They tell us what students are on track and which ones are struggling.
Diagnostic Assessments These are the assessments that the reading specialist, literacy coach, etc. may do in your school. These assessments are usually given to those students who indicate that they are struggling in some way on the benchmark assessment.
Progress Monitoring- these are the assessments that we use to make sure that intervention/preventions we have put into place are working.
Now that we understand what types of assessments are out there, let’s figure out when and how to use them.
A common misconception is that all children learn to read in different ways. Sure, we do have those students who seem to catch on very quickly. They are the students who will master reading with minimal guidance. BUT- research has shown that we do in fact all learn how to read in the same way.
Reading an acquired process. It is not natural, and students acquire reading skills a different time.
It is usually through universal screeners that our struggling readers begin to separate from the pack. This may be the first indication that they are struggling.
So, knowing the assessments to give when to give them is crucial.
This is where diagnostic testing comes into play. Let’s have a look at what assessments are beneficial for those struggling readers.
Phonological Awareness Assessment
This assessment is used to assess a student’s ability to hear and manipulate sounds. This skill is a prerequisite for reading and often is an indication of later reading abilities. The phonological awareness assessment should be used as a formative assessment. Meaning, it should be used to help you as the teacher know where to start instruction.Phonological awareness is developmental and this development often occurs on a continuum. I have attached this continuum to help you pinpoint where to start your students after the assessment has been given.
Phonics/Spelling Inventory & Letter Sound Check
We can gain a lot of information from how our students spell and how many letter sounds they know. We know that letter sounds and phonemic awareness go together to promote decoding and phonics.
This assessment is used to help us analyze areas of weakness in phonics. When giving the phonics assessment, teachers ask students to spell words, but they aren’t just any words. These words are chosen based on the explicit and systematic instruction that will take place in your classroom. This allows you to quickly see what areas your students are weak in. For example: If the word is “glad” and your student spells the word “gad” then you may want to start instruction with blends.
If you need a spelling inventory, you can grab it here. This inventory follows the phonics continuum that I use as well.
Word Recognition in isolation (Pseudo Word Reading)
Why nonsense words? If students are able to decode nonsense words, then that means that they truly understand the skill. If you have ever heard me talk about over compensators, then you know that these are the students that show up in our third or fourth grade classrooms struggling. They have memorized enough words to slide under the radar. But when the text becomes more complex, they begin to struggle. These are the students who either did not have a strong phonics foundation or simply struggled to see the connection. When students read nonsense words, they are forced to apply their phonics knowledge.
If you want to know exactly what phonics patterns your students can decode, give them a nonsense word assessment. When you ask students to read a word like “gub,” then you know that they are able to decode CVC words with the short /u/ sound.
If you want to give nonsense word reading a try, download this quick free assessment. Then send me an email. I would love to talk and analyze the data with you!
Word Recognition in context
How well do your students read when they are asked to read in context? This too applies to phonics because we not only want our students to be able to decode, but we want them to be able to do so automatically. I love giving my students decodable sentences to see how well they perform reading them in context.
Timed Fluency Screener
What leads to good comprehension? FLUENCY. Once students become more automatic in their decoding, I like to give them a quick fluency assessment. This assessment only takes about one minute and I can quickly tell just how automatic they are. How many words can they read per minute? How many words can they accurately read per minute? Are they fluent or are their sentences and words broken, slow, and labored? All of these questions can be answered by a simple one minute fluency screener.
It's so important that the assessments we are using are matched to the development abilities of the child. We want to make sure the data we get is truly reflective. Where are they on their route to reading? We have to assess the skills but we also have to make sure that we assess them at the right times. We already know that our younger students are focused on letter sounds, phonemic awareness, and word recognition and our assessments should really reflect that.
The instructional approaches we use have to align with the data and they have to be developmentally appropriate for our students.
Data helps us make sure that:
Our instruction is working.
Our instruction is aligned
We identify students who are struggling.
We need data to help inform our literacy systems. Many of you have probably heard that the older our students get, the harder it is for them to catch up. The gap just gets larger and larger over time.
This is why it is so important to ensure that we have best reading practices and instruction in place. In order to ensure that we do, we need to have a system of instruction that is data driven.
It's so important that the assessments we are using are matched to the development abilities of the child.
We want to make sure the data we get is truly reflective.
Where are they on their route to reading?
We have to assess the skills but we also have to make sure that we assess them at the right times.
We already know that our younger students are focused on letter sounds, phonemic awareness, and word recognition and our assessments should really reflect that.
As you begin thinking about the assessments you have and how you use them to drive your instruction, check out these ready made assessments for your k-2 and struggling students! These assessments will help you pinpoint exactly where you need to start instruction!
