4 must-have Science of Reading Assessments for first grade

I get messages all the time asking me what science of reading assessments I use…  But first, let’s track how we got to this point, shall we?

I taught first grade for 10 years back when Fountas & Pinnell weren’t bad words, levelized readers were the norm, and phonics was boring and not given much thought.  After 10 years in the classroom, I took a Mom break to stay home with my littles.  

Soon after I left the classroom, I went through the same Science of Reading training my teacher friends did here to keep up my license.  And I got LETRS certified.

Then, I took 2 long-term sub positions when my oldest started kindergarten. That’s when I officially said goodbye to guided reading.  That’s also when I got to test out what works best for small group instruction in an SoR classroom.  I started using our Science of Reading assessments to form groups, and my kinders were growing like nothing I had ever seen in my F&P classroom.

PHEW!  Lots of background info to say, these are my most favorite Science of Reading assessments I’ve used to help guide my instruction.  They’re simple, 10 times faster, and take up WAY less space than the big old DRA kit! #iykyk  And most of them you can get for FREE!

Use PAST To Assess Phonemic Awareness

PAST stands for Phonological Awareness Screening Test.  It’s fast.  It’s simple.  And it tells sooooo much about kids and what they know about sounds. 

What Is It? In a nutshell, PAST is like using Heggerty exercises to assess kids.  It assesses kids by asking them to repeat words and then change them in some way: delete a sound, replace a sound, etc…

Why I Love It? The easiest part of PAST is that the teacher script is right in front of you, and it’s two pages.  I print mine two to a page so it’s all on one side. 🙂

But the BEST part is it’s FREE.  So when ya’ll have messaged me asking if I have made PA science of reading assessments, I say no.  Because this one is just so stinkin’ good and FREE.

How I Use It? Once I have assessed kids on PAST, I record where they fall on these recording sheets from my small groups binder.  Then, I can pull small groups to target their common Phonemic Awareness holes.  In this example below, I would pull Justin & Whitney to work on PAST level K1 (deleting the second part of a blend).  I would pull Cooper to work on level J.  And I would pull back Knox & Evelyn to work on level H1.

Use DIBELS (Acadience) to Assess Phonics

There was a time in my teaching career when I was in the throws of Fountas & Pinnell that I absolutely hated DIBELS.  Like literally loathed it.  It was a state-mandated test for screening all kids and then tracking those below grade level every two weeks.  I turned in the data on the state website every so often and never did another thing with it.  

I think I disliked DIBELS so much because it was just another assessment on top of DRA and others we were already using to levelize kids and I didn’t know how to use the data.

Fast forward to my immersion in the Science of Reading a few years ago and I started seeing real value in these Science of Reading assessments in kindergarten and beyond.

What Is It?  Acadience (formally DIBELS) is a series of quick, 1-minute tests that assess letter naming fluency, segmenting sounds, blending nonsense sounds/words, and oral reading fluency.  Acadience even gives you a little teacher booklet to organize all of your data. 🙂 

Why I Love It?  I love how fast Acadience is.  In less than 5 minutes I can assess a kid in all the areas needed at that time of the year.  I also love that it’s easy to train a paraprofessional to do this testing in a pinch.

How I Use Is It?  In kindergarten, I used this to help me pull groups of kids for letter naming fluency.  I kept track of when kids could ID uppercase and lowercase letters. So, kids who knew uppers and lowers, but hit below the benchmark for letter naming fluency, needed to be pulled to work on naming letters faster.

I also used this data to pull kids who were like this one in the example below.  They could say the sounds during the nonsense word fluency test, but they weren’t really blending them to read them as whole words.  So with these kids, I would use small group time to target blending.

You can find the teacher booklets and student pages all here for free if you sign up.

Use Decoding Passages to Assess Reading

When I was trying out all of these Science of Reading assessments, what was missing was some way to identify how well kids could actually read once they knew letters and sounds.  PAST & DIBLES were mostly for phonemic awareness and segmenting, and blending.

Those are SUPER important.  But at the end of the day, we want kids to read words in context.  And we need to meet them where they are.  So, as I started creating decodable booklets and passages for extra practice. I also added a decoding assessment for each decoding skill.

What Is It?  Decoding checkups are like running records for decodables.  They assess kids’ ability to decode using a specific phonics skill like short a.  It asks kids to decode words in isolation, decode a short sentence, and decode a paragraph.

Why I Love It?  I can hear kids decode in isolation and in context. In the example below, Cooper is able to read individual words, but when those CVCe long a words are put in a longer context, his decoding skills decrease.  

While Acadience does have an oral reading component, the words are just “grade level” and it is not written to hone in on a specific phonics skill.  And that is a huge game changer.  Acadience tells me if they are reading on grade level.  Decoding checkups tell me what phonics sound is missing. 

How I Use Is It?  So, I record their data on these recording sheets and fill the gaps that I find.  I use these decoding Science of Reading assessments as I teach our sounds whole group.  If they pass that sound, great.  If not, they get pulled with other kiddos to work on decoding that skill.  And I recheck them to see how they are doing with that skill.  

I was assessing kids as we went through the phonics curriculum.  I use this quick and easy phonics screener to screen kids at the beginning of the year. This would be helpful to get a quick handle on kids who are struggling from day 1 and how to help them quickly.

I also use this data to help kids color in their phonics level on this thermometer.  Kids keep this in their reading folder, and it gives them a visual for what skills they are working on and helps us set goals on what to work on next. 

Use Oral Interviews to Assess K-2 Comprehension

The biggest shift from DRA testing to Science of Reading assessments is comprehension.  The research from the Science of Reading tells us that if we want kids to comprehend what they read, they must first comprehend what they hear.  So, for primary students, oral comprehension comes first.  

And we know that once they can comprehend a story read aloud AND can decode texts, they will begin weaving those two skills together to comprehend what they read.

What Is It?  Oral interviews for comprehension look exactly as you would expect.  After reading aloud a book to the whole group several times, I pull kids back and ask them to retell the story.  It doesn’t even have to be the same day.  In a time crunch, I would read the book on day 1, call back my higher kiddos to retell, and then reread the book on day 2 and call more kids back. 

I use whatever graphic organizer we’ve been using to retell stories as a visual cue to help them organize their thoughts.  The ice-cream scoop is one of the first ones I use because… who doesn’t love ice-cream? 

It’s important to know that when I’m assessing this, the graphic organizer is in front of them, but I’m not referencing it or pointing to it.  If they struggle, I will go back and give them cues, but then I’m noting that in my data.

Why I Love It?  First, I always love having conversations with kids.  It builds rapport and gives me a small glimpse into their world and how they see it.  But it also tells me a lot about whether kids can sequence events, use transition words, use complete sentences, etc. 

How I Use Is It?  During the interview, I have the graphic organizer in front of the kid and this data recording sheet in front of me.  I simply say, “Tell me about the book we read called, ______.” I use this comprehension checklist to help me guide where the strengths and weaknesses are. 

If they struggle retelling the beginning, middle, and end, I stop.  If they do that well on their own, I check off what else they add and then ask them other questions for some of the other skills like, “Who were the characters in the story?” or “What was the moral of this story?”

Once I have their comprehension checklist filled out, I can start using that data to form comprehension groups.