Language Foundations Continuum for Reading and Writing

“The primary purpose of assessment is to improve student learning.”
Growing Success, 2010, p. 28

Assessment of phonics is a powerful way for educators to support improved student outcomes. A variety of sources of insight into students’ grapheme-phoneme knowledge and understanding, including early reading screening, diagnostic assessments, and progress monitoring, can be used as assessment for learning to drive evidence-based explicit and systematic instruction.

Since phonics is critical knowledge that predicts future reading skills, assessing students’ knowledge and understanding can be done through early reading screening. Many evidence-based screening tools include phonics subtests for young students, including correct letter sounds scores on nonsense word fluency measures.

For older, struggling readers, diagnostic assessments can be used to identify which specific grapheme-phoneme correspondences can be taught. This is an important component, often necessary to meet the needs of students who struggle with reading, including those with dyslexia.

For students who are at-risk, progress monitoring with phonics, such as nonsense word fluency, is a powerful way to ensure that instruction or intervention is best meeting the needs of students.

In writing, educators may consider using a spelling inventory as assessment for learning. These tools can typically be administered to the whole class with a list of words. Students’ spelling is scored with a scoresheet that allows for a close examination of their understanding of sounds, spelling patterns, and morphology.