6. Assessing Student Learning of Phoneme Manipulation

It's important to assess whether students have mastered the skill you just taught, in this case, phoneme manipulation. This will help you address any gaps in reading skills that could cause problems later on. Mastery assessments are quick checks to see if your students can accurately and consistently perform a skill. (We've got one for you below.)

Generally, you'll know its time to give a student a mastery assessment when they're able to perform their new skill accurately three times in a row, on three different occasions (for example, three days in a row).

A Free, Short, Downloadable Assessment

Here's a short assessment for you to use to check your students mastery of phoneme manipulation, including deletion, addition, and substitution. It should take no longer than two to three minutes per child. Feel free to share our assessment with your colleagues.

Tips for Effective Assessments of Phonological Awareness Skills

1. Assess one student at a time.
2. Give a student one task at a time.
3. Use manipulatives as a scaffold, but for mastery, students should complete tasks without them.
4. Do not have any print visible, since you’re assessing a phonological skill.
5. Do not set a time limit for tasks (typically, each takes two to three minutes per student).
6. Record incorrect responses. Address misunderstandings later on.
7. Do not mark issues caused by a student’s dialect or speech impediments as errors.

What Do Your Assessment Results Mean?

Students who respond correctly 80% of the time (or higher) on the assessment we've provided are ready to move on from phoneme manipulation.

For those who aren't reaching 80%, there are three instructional options you can use to provide additional support:

1. Add Time and Repetitions

You can increase the amount of time for instruction, slow the pace of instruction, and allow more time for practicing the skill. For example, while some children might catch on to phoneme deletion after working through five words, other children might need 10 or 20.

2. Change Your Instruction

If what we described above Touch and Say with felt squares is not resulting in mastery, it is likely that students are having a hard time holding those individual sounds in their memory to make the change. To help them visualize the change, you can provide letters as a scaffold. For example, tell students a word like pat. Ask them to tap the sounds using their felt squares: /p/, /ă/, /t/. Then, you write pat on a whiteboard. Next, tell students the new word that you want them to form: pit. Ask them to tap that word on their felt squares: /p/, /ĭ/, /t/. Then, you write pit on the board. Ask students to identify the beginning, middle, or end position in the word where there is a difference. If it hasn't been easy for them to identify the difference using sound only, then being able to see the difference between a and I may help. Continue this with a few words, until they catch on. Then try again practicing manipulating sounds without letters.

3. Change Your Student Groupings

If students who are falling behind have only been practicing in a whole group, try small-group instruction. If they have only been practicing in a small group, try one-on-one instruction. Some students may need multiple opportunities for individualized practice with prompt corrective feedback.