It’s important to continuously monitor student progress to make sure your instruction is effective — and to flag foundational skills that haven’t been mastered, which can cause problems later.
Informal assessments, such as dictation, can be used during a lesson to ensure students are grasping the information and applying what they know.
Periodic individual assessments are also key. In this section, we provide help with:
We assess these two skills separately since students have different goals for each, and because the skills are individually good predictors of proficient reading.
Students should eventually be fluent at letter naming and letter sounds as measured by 100 percent accuracy on a timed (one-minute) assessment. Typically during an assessment like this, students will read a document with rows of letters in various order, and will be asked to name the same letter, or provide the letter sound, numerous times.
