Assessments are the backbone of excellent reading instruction, not because we want children to be good test-takers, but because we want to meet them right where they are in their reading development.
1. Assessments pinpoint reading development
We teach our children well by knowing them well. You already know your child’s favorite color, food, and activity, why not also know exactly where they are in their reading development? You probably already know if your child struggles to sound out words but do you know why they have that struggle? A simple assessment can answer that question.
Assessments can identify the reading skills your child still needs to become a skilled reader. For example, if your child struggles to sound out consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words, it might be that they are actually struggling to identify specific letter sounds or that they do not yet know how to blend sounds together. An assessment like the Foundations Assessment will clearly identify the struggle.
Maybe your child can read CVC words (like dog), but they struggle to read more challenging words. The Letter Patterns Assessment will determine which letter patterns your child is struggling with so that you know where to begin instruction.
Assessments show us reality so that we can do something about it.
2. Assessments inform next steps
Just knowing where our child is in their reading development doesn’t create a skilled reader. Assessment results inform our next steps for instruction. Once we know what specific skill a child is struggling with, we can intervene and implement good reading instruction.
Good reading instruction is systematic, which simply means it is planned and implemented in a specific order. Reading development generally follows a natural pattern. First, children learn phonological awareness, letter names, and sounds. Once they’ve mastered those skills, they begin learning how to decode simple words (like CVC words). Once they master CVC words they move on to trickier letter patterns like CVCe (silent e) words. And so it progresses…
Consider reading development like a timeline. The assessment pinpoints where the child is on the timeline and then we can clearly see where they need to go next. If you homeschool, you can go through your curriculum and reteach any necessary skills or note which future lessons just need a quick review because that skill has already been mastered. For homeschool or traditional school families, you can find interventions and activities from thousands of sources online to teach the next skill. My personal favorite is Florida Center for Reading Research. They have free, ready-to-go interventions for nearly every word recognition skill.
And if you’d like a reading professional to plan the instruction for you, consider purchasing an Individualized Reading Plan where I will create a custom tutoring plan for your child.
3. Assessments confirm effectiveness
After you’ve pinpointed an area of need and provided systematic instruction, it’s good to follow-up with an assessment to confirm effectiveness. Meaning, check and see if the instruction you provided actually increased knowledge.
Follow-up assessments can just be redoing the initial assessment or they can be informal and quick. For example, if I completed the Free Phonological Awareness Assessment with my child and they did not show mastery of rhyming words, following the instruction I implemented, I would go back and just complete the rhyming portion of the Phonological Awareness Assessment to see if the student now shows mastery.
Another option would be a quick, informal check where I would choose a few new words and say something like, “Can you tell me a word that rhymes with goat?” Or, “Do cake and take rhyme?”
Whether you choose the formal or informal route, it is good to follow up instruction with an assessment. Instruction only matters if the child actually learns.
Now what?
If you’re ready to try assessing your child so they can progress in becoming a skilled reader, try one of these below!
Individualized Reading Plan + All Assessments – you get access to all assessments and then I will create a custom tutoring plan for your child!
Freebie: Phonological Awareness Assessment
If you’re still not sure where to go next for your child’s reading development, you can book a 30 minute consultation with me to talk it through!