6- Phonological Awareness
Phonological Awareness
First Assessment – Phonological Awareness Skills Test (PAST)
Source: Orange County Public Schools - https://teacher.ocps.net/OPMTools/
This test was made available on the Orange County Public Schools website, and it is an adaptation from the test originally published in the book “Sounds in Action” (2000), by Yvette Zgonc.
The PAST test is comprehensive, evaluating 14 aspects of the development of Phonological Awareness. It was designed as an informal, individual assessment, with a total of 84 words on the test. Some of the skills evaluated are typically mastered by Pre-K students, such as sentence segmentation and rhyme, while other skills the test are achieved by first or second grade students, such as phoneme deletion and substitution, which makes this test valuable for the early grades in elementary. The OCPS has also created a document with the suggested starting points on the test by grade level, which may prove to be helpful when determining which test to administer to your class. In order to administer the test, the teacher will need a pencil and counters or chips for the segmentation part. The entire test is done orally, and each section should take no longer than 3-4 minutes.
According to the author, a skill is considered mastered when a student gets five correct answers out of six questions. The test takes approximately 20 minutes to complete.
Click here for the teacher script of the test.
Click here for the book excerpt.
Click here for the student record sheet.
Click here for the suggested starting points.
Second Assessment – Phonological Assessment Screener
Source: Maury County School System - http://www.mauryk12.org/titleone/Professional%20Development.htm
The Phonological Assessment Screener is made available by the Maury County Public Schools in Tennessee and was adapted from the Phonological Awareness Screener for Intervention-95% Group, Inc., the Reading Readiness-Neuhaus Education Center and the Tennessee Center for Study and Treatment of Dyslexia.
This informal assessment takes a different approach- it relies on the “I do- we do – you do” method to evaluate the student’s proficiency. It is divided in 10 different phonological tests with varying numbers of questions on each. According to the authors, this screening is appropriate for kindergarten and first graders who need to have phonemic skills evaluated in order to move forward with their reading and spelling lessons. It is recommended to start the assessment in Kindergarten with task 1 in the fall and work all the way through task 7 (Words in a Sentence to Phoneme Segmentation). In the first grade, students will then be evaluated on tasks 7 to 10 (Phoneme Segmentation to Phoneme Substitution). Since the test is taken in parts, there is no estimated time for completion of the test. The assessment is administered individually and it is done orally, with the help of blocks for some of the tasks.
Click here for assessment instructions
Click here for assessment scoring
Click here for description of tasks
Click here for continuum of complexity
Phonological Awareness
First Assessment – Phonological Awareness Skills Test (PAST)
Source: Orange County Public Schools - https://teacher.ocps.net/OPMTools/
This test was made available on the Orange County Public Schools website, and it is an adaptation from the test originally published in the book “Sounds in Action” (2000), by Yvette Zgonc.
The PAST test is comprehensive, evaluating 14 aspects of the development of Phonological Awareness. It was designed as an informal, individual assessment, with a total of 84 words on the test. Some of the skills evaluated are typically mastered by Pre-K students, such as sentence segmentation and rhyme, while other skills the test are achieved by first or second grade students, such as phoneme deletion and substitution, which makes this test valuable for the early grades in elementary. The OCPS has also created a document with the suggested starting points on the test by grade level, which may prove to be helpful when determining which test to administer to your class. In order to administer the test, the teacher will need a pencil and counters or chips for the segmentation part. The entire test is done orally, and each section should take no longer than 3-4 minutes.
According to the author, a skill is considered mastered when a student gets five correct answers out of six questions. The test takes approximately 20 minutes to complete.
Click here for the teacher script of the test.
Click here for the book excerpt.
Click here for the student record sheet.
Click here for the suggested starting points.
Second Assessment – Phonological Assessment Screener
Source: Maury County School System - http://www.mauryk12.org/titleone/Professional%20Development.htm
The Phonological Assessment Screener is made available by the Maury County Public Schools in Tennessee and was adapted from the Phonological Awareness Screener for Intervention-95% Group, Inc., the Reading Readiness-Neuhaus Education Center and the Tennessee Center for Study and Treatment of Dyslexia.
This informal assessment takes a different approach- it relies on the “I do- we do – you do” method to evaluate the student’s proficiency. It is divided in 10 different phonological tests with varying numbers of questions on each. According to the authors, this screening is appropriate for kindergarten and first graders who need to have phonemic skills evaluated in order to move forward with their reading and spelling lessons. It is recommended to start the assessment in Kindergarten with task 1 in the fall and work all the way through task 7 (Words in a Sentence to Phoneme Segmentation). In the first grade, students will then be evaluated on tasks 7 to 10 (Phoneme Segmentation to Phoneme Substitution). Since the test is taken in parts, there is no estimated time for completion of the test. The assessment is administered individually and it is done orally, with the help of blocks for some of the tasks.
Click here for assessment instructions
Click here for assessment scoring
Click here for description of tasks
Click here for continuum of complexity