RIC-6976 Phonological awareness skills Book 5 p1-23

ASSESSING PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS SKILLS
Phonological awareness skills play an important part in early childhood
learning. It is therefore essential to screen children as early as possible
so that any gaps in education, misconceptions or weaknesses can
be remedied quickly. Learning difficulties should be detected and
rectified as early as possible so that issues of poor self-esteem do not
develop.
Phonological awareness is a strong predictor of literacy development
and the Phonological pre-tests provide an overview of pre- reading
skills needed for literacy development.
Levels of phonological awareness
word
syllable
onset and rime
phoneme
PRE-TESTING AND POST-TESTING
It is essential to assess young children on their phonological awareness skills before introducing
specific ones.
Phonological awareness testing should occur early at kindergarten or prep level, and monitoring of
the children’s progress should continue throughout the year.
Both pre- and post-testing have been provided in this book. All tests should be administered on a
one-to-one basis.
The post- tests provided in this book are comprehensive and have a greater degree of difficulty,
assessing a child’s understanding of phonological awareness skills. In-depth assessments are
provided at the end of each skill section. An assessment covering all skills in the book is provided on
pages 215–216. Once gaps in learning or misconceptions have been identified, teachers can utilise
the information to further assist children experiencing learning difficulties.
Full instructions are provided and no resources are required to carry out the testing. A section is
provided for teachers to make comments about children’s responses.
Teachers should use their own initiative about when to stop the testing if students are confused,
frustrated or find the test too easy (when it is very obvious they have mastered the skill).
A class recording sheet is provided on page 217 for the pre-test and for the post-test. More than
one copy of the checklist may need to be printed to cover all the children in the class. Options for
colouring the results are suggested to make it easier to view results at a glance.
To administer the assessments, teachers or adult helpers will need:
• one set of assessment task sheets for each child
• three simple sound items for the auditory discrimination task
• class recording sheet
Administering the tests:
• Assess children individually.
• Give clear instructions (these are included).
• Assess in an area where there are few distractions.
• Model examples so children have a clear understanding of the tasks.
• Record responses and comment about automaticity of answers.
• Work through each section until the children have four consecutive incorrect answers.
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PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS SKILLS (Book 5) ISBN 978-1-925698-56-5 www.ricpublications.com.au