Who: Phonemic awareness should be assessed on all children in grades K-1 and any children with reading difficulties.

 

What: Phonemic awareness is the students' ability to hear and manipulate sounds in spoken words. Phonemic awareness accompanies the students' understanding of concepts of print. This assessment determines the students' ability to hear and manipulate these various sounds.

 

When: For students in grades K-1 it should be conducted three times a year and then also as needed.

 

Why: This assessment identifies children who demonstrate weakness in phonemic awareness.

 

How: The teacher will develop a set of questions that assesses the different types of phonemic awareness, such as rhyming, "oddity," same-different, counting, blending, and segmenting tasks. The teacher will keep the assessment material while conducting the test. In phonemic awareness, the student listens to the different questions and tasks, and then answers accordingly. The student should not need any materials, such as pencils or paper. The teacher will record the students' responses on her copy of the assessment.