Assessment Day is always exciting. I just finished up with three different sessions of assessments this morning, and the children did a great job! I will always say they did great if they put the effort into trying (even if they didn’t perfect the reading skill assessed). Assessment Day is SO VITAL to a successful start to a tutoring journey because it marks the beginning of some helpful data in determining where I should start structured yet differentiated instruction that caters to a particular child’s learning needs.
“Structured” as in orderly, organized, logical, sequential — educators need to position themselves to deliver instruction that doesn’t further confuse a child who may already be struggling to master certain areas of reading. Teaching reading skills should follow a natural progression of introducing reading concepts that build upon one another in a logical way, getting incrementally more difficult as continued instruction progresses.
And, “differentiated” because every child’s reading and learning needs are different; and the tutoring curriculum and instruction delivery should be individualized and uniquely fashioned to close the skills gaps between where the child’s reading proficiency is and where the child’s reading proficiency needs to be.
The assessment I administer during the second meeting with a tutee truly takes a “structured” (there’s that word again) approach in presenting decoding testing that introduces phonetic sounds and word patterns to children. It just makes sense as a credible tool to determine what skills a child has mastered and which ones he or she needs assistance with.
Furthermore, the assessment I utilize indentifies a child’s level of phonological awareness in an “Informal Decoding Inventory” that goes over phonetic sounds and word patterns in the following sequence: basic alphabet knowledge (letter names and sounds), consonant-vowel-consonant patterns, blends and digraphs, words with r-controlled vowels, vowel-consonant-e words, words with long vowel teams, and then multisyllabic words (words with more than one syllable) and their sound and word patterns.
I also administer an assessment that goes through the first 200 “Fry” high-frequency words (or “sight words”) to see how well a child is mastering those words that are frequently used in text. And, it’s also common knowledge that many of these high-frequency (sight words) don’t fit the regular phonetic rules. So, providing careful instruction on teaching a child to read these types of words is VERY important.
Because this assessment step is critical and necessary to determine where to begin tutoring a child, I don’t rush through it at all. If it takes several sessions to get through all the assessments, the time spent is well worth it to get the data I need to develop a tutoring plan that lays out the BEST path of reading progression for each individual child.
And, I’ve also learned that reading plans should be flexible and can be updated as needed if in the best interest of the child. Sometimes, time and experience with a tutee are the revealing factors for how to best conduct a tutoring session, resulting in learning sessions that “move the needle forward” for a child.
degreesofmaternity.com 
Phil – you speak truth, for sure. Phonological awareness is the foundation of everything other reading concept/skill built upon it. And, many of our children are struggling with the basics, starting with the phonological awareness. It’s so incredibly important how we introduce reading concepts to children; and I’m afraid that because of the way certain systems are set up today, we are failing to educate our children in an effective manner. And, if children are not receiving positive reading reinforcement from home, progression in reading skills levels will be hampered. There are just so many factors that work against our children today. The situation saddens me, but it makes me want to be more fervent in serving our children and helping them get to where they need to be. Well, as many children as one person can hope to serve and help, anyway. And I appreciate how you mentioned what I like to call three of the “success factors” to just about any worthwhile endeavor — 1) time, 2) consistency, and 3) patience. All three are very much needed in teaching children to read. Love it! Thanks so much for your wonderful input, Phil. I will keep on keeping on in an effort to serve our young learners.
LikeLike
Jana, I like your comments here—the importance of phonics cannot be underestimated.
From my experience, not all children can see the relationship between the written word, a syllable and a letter. It is a relationship thing! Mind you, many young people speak in a clipped, shortened manner, so formal words and sentences are just not part of their speech, and therefore not part of their understanding. These children rarely read at home, so correct sentence structure is not part of their world beyond the limited exposure they get at school. They find it all too hard, as their parents probably did, so they do as little as they possibly can.
Good luck with your efforts; it just takes time, consistency and patience.
Regards, Phil
LikeLiked by 1 person