Letters And Sounds Keywords - Assessing Children

[Guest]

Does anyone assess their children regularly on the keywords from letters and sounds - our reception teachers assess the children each week on which ones they can read and spell and only send home the next list they need ( they have divided the words into lists ) once they can read these - I'm not sure this is the best use of time when it is so frequent so any advice or views would be appreciated

Edited June 30, 2010 by suebee

[Susan]

That sounds very burdensome.

Personally I think you assess children in how they are reading and writing them in those tasks not in isolation and maybe and only maybe make an end of phase assessment before moving on to the next.

[Guest LornaW]

But isn't L&S about blending and segmenting>

 

I certainly don't think it says anywhere you should be assessing them on spelling.

 

Also if they are assessing anything it should be there phonic knowledge and certainly not every week. I agree with Susan also in that it should be in context.

 

Lorna

[Guest]

re Letters And Sounds Keywords - Assessing Children

Since we have been using Letters and Sounds in the Foundation unit, I have carried out individual assessment in the last week of each half term. I use the objectives for each letters and sounds week to play games with the children,,, eg, (phase 2) who can make the word cat using these letters who can find a given word? ( word bingo) who can read this word? Who knows this phoneme? The children enjoy the competition as they are grouped in phases, and it enables me to see where in the phase they are or if they are ready to move onto the next phase.

Imy

 

I am new here, hope this helps

[catma]

If the children are being enabled to blend and segment they should be able to decode the majority of the common words as they are phonemically regular, which is the application of the skills you are teaching. Only the tricky words will need direct teaching and support to memorize how they work.

They should be assessed in context to look at application of blending skills when reading, otherwise I figure it's a bit of a pointless activity for all concerned and tells you little about a child's readingand where they are on the simple view of reading quadrants for analysis of skills.

 

Cx