Areas for phonics assessment slide outlines

1. Areas for phonics assessment

Extract from a Literacy Hub professional learning webinar.

2. Areas for phonics assessment

3. Overview of assessment for phonics knowledge and skills

[Image: Table shows progression in phonics for students in Foundation, Year 1 and Year 2, across the areas of Phonological and Phonemic awareness, Letter–sound correspondences, Decoding and encoding accuracy, and Fluency, and identifies expected skills at specific year levels.

Phonological and phonemic awareness spans the Foundation year and the first half of Year 1.

Letter–sound correspondences:

  • Foundation: Single sounds
  • Year 1: Common consonant and vowel patterns
  • Year 2: Less common consonant and vowel patterns

Decoding and encoding accuracy:

  • Foundation: Word level (consonant-vowel-consonant words); sentence level; text level
  • Year 1: Word level (one- and two-syllable words); sentence level; text level
  • Year 2: Word level (multisyllabic words; sentence level; text level

Fluency:

  • Foundation: Word-level decoding and encoding fluency
  • Year 1: Developing text-level reading fluency
  • Year 2: Text-level reading fluency.]

4. Phonic and word knowledge: Foundation

[Image: Slide shows areas of phonic and word knowledge in the Foundation year and how these align to the literacy strand of the Australian Curriculum v9. On the left are the phonics knowledge and skill areas and on the right are the corresponding Australian Curriculum content descriptors with which they align. All sub-strands fall under the strand: Phonic and word knowledge: Foundation. Phonological and phonemic awareness aligns with the content descriptors ‘recognise and generate rhyming words, alliteration patterns, syllables and sounds (phonemes) in spoken words (phonological awareness)’ (AC9EFLY09) and ‘segment sentences into individual words; orally blend and segment single-syllable spoken words; isolate, blend and manipulate phonemes in single-syllable words (phonological awareness)’ (AC9EFLY10). Letter–sound correspondence knowledge (single sounds) aligns with the content descriptor ‘recognise and name all upper- and lower-case letters (graphs) and know the most common sound that each letter represents’ (AC9EFLY11). Decoding and encoding accuracy (word level CVC words, sentence level, text level) aligns with the content descriptors ‘write consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words by representing sounds with the appropriate letters, and blend sounds associated with letters when reading CVC words’ (AC9EFLY12) and ‘use knowledge of letters and sounds to spell words’ (AC9EFLY13). Fluency (word-level decoding and encoding fluency) aligns with the content descriptors ‘read and write some high-frequency words and other familiar words’ (AC9EFLY14) and ‘understand that words are units of meaning and can be made of more than one meaningful part’ (AC9EFLY15).]

5. Phonic and word knowledge: Year 1

[Image: Slide shows areas of phonic and word knowledge in Year 1 and how these align to the literacy strand of the Australian Curriculum v9. On the left are the phonics knowledge and skill areas and on the right are the corresponding Australian Curriculum strands and content descriptors with which they align. All content descriptors except those related to Fluency sit under the Australian Curriculum strand Phonic and word knowledge: Year 1. Phonological and phonemic awareness aligns with the content descriptors ‘segment words into separate phonemes (sounds) including consonant blends or clusters at the beginnings and ends of words (phonological awareness)’ (AC9E1LY09) and ‘orally manipulate phonemes in spoken words by addition, deletion and substitution of initial, medial and final phonemes to generate new words (phonological awareness)’ (AC9E1LY10). Letter–sound correspondences (common consonant and vowel patterns) aligns with the content descriptors ‘use short vowels, common long vowels, consonant blends and digraphs to write words, and blend these to read one- and two-syllable words’ (AC9E1LY11) and ‘understand that a letter can represent more than one sound and that a syllable must contain a vowel sound’ (AC9E1LY12). Decoding and encoding accuracy (word level: one- and two-syllable words, sentence level, text level) aligns with the content descriptors ‘understand that a letter can represent more than one sound and that a syllable must contain a vowel sound’ (AC9E1LY12), ‘spell one- and two-syllable words with common letter patterns’ (AC9E1LY13), ‘read and write an increasing number of high-frequency words’ (AC9E1LY14) and ‘recognise and know how to use grammatical morphemes to create word families’ (AC9E1LY15). Fluency (developing text-level reading fluency) aligns with Australian Curriculum strand Analysing, interpreting and evaluating: Year 1, content descriptor ‘read decodable and authentic texts using developing phonic knowledge, phrasing and fluency, and monitoring meaning using context and grammatical knowledge’ (AC9E1LY04).]

6. Phonics and word knowledge: Year 2

[Image: Slide shows areas of phonic and word knowledge in Year 2 and how these align to the literacy strand of the Australian Curriculum v9. On the left are the phonics knowledge and skill areas and on the right are the corresponding Australian Curriculum strands and content descriptors with which they align. All content descriptors (except those related to Fluency) sit under the Australian Curriculum strand Phonic and word knowledge: Year 2. Phonological and phonemic awareness aligns with the content descriptor ‘manipulate more complex sounds in spoken words and use knowledge of blending, segmenting, phoneme deletion and phoneme substitution to read and write words’ (AC9E2LY09). Letter–sound correspondences (less common consonant and vowel patterns) aligns with the content descriptor ‘use phoneme-grapheme (sound-letter/s) matches, including vowel digraphs, less common long vowel patterns, consonant clusters and silent letters when reading and writing words of one or more syllables, including compound words’ (AC9E2LY10). Decoding and encoding accuracy (word level: multisyllabic words, sentence level, text level) aligns with the content descriptors ‘use phoneme-grapheme (sound-letter/s) matches, including vowel digraphs, less common long vowel patterns, consonant clusters and silent letters when reading and writing words of one or more syllables, including compound words’ (AC9E2LY10), ‘use knowledge of spelling patterns and morphemes to read and write words whose spelling is not completely predictable from their sounds, including high-frequency words’ (AC9E2LY11) and ‘build morphemic word families using knowledge of prefixes and suffixes’ (AC9E2LY12). Fluency (text-level reading fluency) aligns with Australian Curriculum strand Analysing, interpreting and evaluating: Year 2, content descriptor ‘read texts with phrasing and fluency, using phonic and word knowledge, and monitoring meaning by re-reading and self-correcting’ (AC9E2LY04).]

7. Overview of assessment for phonics knowledge and skills

  • Phonological and phonemic awareness [assessment tool]: Quick Phonological Awareness Screening (QPAS)
  • Letter–sound correspondences (single sound) [assessment tool]: Reading Rockets: Name and letter sound assessment
  • Decoding and encoding accuracy (word level CVC words in Foundation, word level one- and two-syllable words in Year 1 and multisyllabic word level in Year 2) [assessment tool]: Year 1 Phonics Check (decoding)
  • Fluency (word-level decoding and encoding fluency in Foundation, developing text-level reading fluency in Year 1, and text-level reading fluency in Year 2) [assessment tool]: DIBELS assessment suite (decoding).