The Phonics Assessment (PHA) is Dystech's new reading assessment tool. The PHA is a single-word reading assessment that targets and covers the most common phonic concepts within the English language.
In this article we will cover the following:
Video Instruction
What is the purpose of the Phonics Assessment?
The Phonics Assessment allows students to demonstrate their knowledge and skills, while teachers can gain a deeper understanding of their students' phonic abilities. By choosing which category of phonic knowledge they will assess, teachers can adapt the assessment to meet the needs of each student. The results of the Phonics Assessment will indicate whether the student has mastered the necessary skills, needs skill reinforcement, and/or where the student requires explicit instruction.
What does the assessment measure?
The Phonics Assessment will provide you with easily identifiable, colour-coded results to indicate the accuracy of each phonics concept (we call them categories) your student reads.
Emerging (red): 0-5 accuracy for a given phonic category
The recommendation is that the student requires explicit instruction in this concept.
Developing (yellow: 6-7 accuracy for a given phonic category
The recommendation is that the student has some understanding of the concept but requires reinforcement.
Fluent (green): proficient 8-10 accuracy for a given phonic category
The recommendation is that the student is proficient and can move to the next concept.
The Phonics Assessment assesses 10 categories, each category contains 10 words 5 real and 5 pseudos.
Those are the available categories:
CVC Syllables
CVC+ Syllables
Silent E Syllables
Soft C & G
Vowel Teams
Diphthongs
Further Concepts
R Controlled Vowels
Basic Affixes
Multisyllabic Words
You can run the whole assessment or select specific categories to assess. This allows you to customise the assessment to suit your students' needs.
Preparation
You will need two devices with internet connections. The Phonics Assessment is accessible on any browser and works best on your tablet, laptop or desktop.
Place one chair in front of the computer screen (for the student) and one to the side (for you). Make sure the student can't see your screen
Once you have logged in you will arrive on the dashboard.
Navigate to Students
Click Start assessment
Select Phonic Assessment (PHA)
Select which categories to assess, when selected press start assessment
Then, share the generated link with your student. Your student will need a device with internet and a microphone.
Read the student instruction to your student.
During the Assessment
Press Start Assessment and click the Show word for the word to appear, this is where your student should attempt the read the word.
Remember not to talk or prompt the student to read during the assessment as it will interfere with the recording.
If the student reads the word CORRECTLY, press Read correctly, you can then annotate if the student self-corrected or not.
If the student reads the word INCORRECTLY, select Read incorrectly and you will be prompted to select which phonemes were pronounced incorrectly and make notes if required.
Select which error was made according to the choices provided. This is important for reporting.
You can cancel the assessment by pressing End assessment, this will end the assessment and only provide you with the results for categories completed in full.
When the assessment finishes, congratulate the student and once they have left, select Go to Report or Return to Dashboard.
Categories Explained
CVC Syllables: CVC stands for Consonant-Vowel-Consonant syllables. These syllables follow the pattern of a consonant followed by a vowel and then another consonant. They form simple, basic words in the English language, such as "cat," "dog," and "bus." CVC syllables help young learners recognize and decode basic word structures.
CVC+ Syllables: CVC+ syllables build upon the CVC pattern by adding an extra consonant, creating four-letter words with the pattern Consonant-Vowel-Consonant-Consonant (CVCC) or Consonant-Consonant-Vowel-Consonant (CCVC). Examples include "rest" and "clap." This category helps students understand more complex word structures.
Silent E Syllables: Silent E syllables refer to words that end with a vowel followed by a silent "e." The silent "e" often changes the pronunciation of the preceding vowel, making it long, as in "cake," "dime," and "note." This category helps learners recognize the role of the silent "e" in pronunciation.
Soft C & G: Soft C refers to the "s" sound made by the letter "c" when it appears before the vowels "e," "i," or "y," as in "city", "cell" or "cycle". Soft G refers to the "j" sound made by the letter "g" before "e," "i," or "y," as in "gentle", "giraffe", and "gym'. This category teaches the different pronunciations of the letters "c" and "g" based on their position in a word.
Vowel Teams: Vowel teams are pairs of vowels that work together to create a single sound. They can produce long vowel sounds, as in "boat" and "rain," or unique sounds, as in "ou" in "cloud" and "au" in "taunt." This category helps learners recognize and decode vowel teams within words.
Diphthongs: Diphthongs are combinations of two adjacent vowels producing a noticeable sound change within the same syllable, such as "oi" in "boil" and "ou" in "house." This category teaches the pronunciation of these unique vowel combinations.
Further Concepts: This category may include additional concepts, such as consonant blends, digraphs, and trigraphs, which involve two or more consonants working together to create a distinct sound.
R-Controlled Vowels: R-controlled vowels occur when a vowel is followed by the letter "r," which alters the vowel's pronunciation. Examples include "car," "bird," and "perfect." This category helps learners understand the influence of "r" on vowel sounds.
Basic Affixes: Affixes are word parts that can be added to a base word or root to create a new word or change its meaning. Basic affixes include prefixes (added to the beginning of a word) and suffixes (added to the end of a word). This category teaches learners to recognize and understand common affixes.
Multisyllabic Words: Multisyllabic words are words with two or more syllables. This category helps learners break down longer, more complex words into smaller parts to improve their decoding and reading comprehension skills.