Reading Small Groups can be overwhelming for many teachers. So let’s explore the various components of small group instruction in order to make it more fun and less intimidating! You may also be interested in finding out more in my Getting Started Guide for Small Groups, Tips for Writing Small Group Lesson Plans, or Essential Tools for Small Groups.
Types of Data for Reading Small Groups
In this series of posts, we are looking at assessments you can administer during your reading small groups. We’ll explore informal quick checks in this post. Click below to view the other methods for collecting data on your students.
What are Informal Quick Checks?
These informal assessments provide teachers with additional data about students’ literacy skills. These can be administered to determine baseline data or as a progress monitoring tool. Continue reading to find more specific examples of informal quick checks.
Types of Informal Quick Checks
While there are specific forms teachers can use to administer these assessments, they are not required. These informal quick checks can be administered through a brief one-on-one or small group session with students. The data can be recorded on any sheet a paper, without being required to use a specific template.
Letter Sounds and Identification
The alphabet is the foundation of our language, so it is essential to make sure emergent readers can recognize letters and sounds. Teachers can point to a letter and ask students to name it and/or say the sound. Another option is to see if the students can write the letters. This will show if they have any letter reversals or confusion with upper/lowercase letters. It’s also helpful to do this with students who are working on alphabetical order. It’s surprising how many of them skip letters when writing the alphabet. Obviously, that impacts their ability to successfully alphabetize words.
Concepts of Print
This determines if students understand how reading works. Teachers can ask students to distinguish between a letter, word, or sentence in the text. It can also assess if students know the directionality of reading (where to start, reading left to right, top to bottom) as well as components of a book (cover, spine, first page).
Phonological Awareness
This is students’ overall awareness of sounds in writing and in speech. These assessments evaluate students’ ability to manipulate sounds orally and in writing. Here are specific assessments with examples of questions to ask:
- Rhyme – Do these two words rhyme? (Students give yes or no answer)
- Syllable Blending – Put these two parts together to tell me the word. Example: /un/ – /der/ and student will say /under/
- Syllable Segmenting – Break this word into two parts. Example: /under/ and student will say /un/-/der/
- Syllable Deletion – Say (word) without the (syllable). Example: say /under/ without the /un/ and student will say /der/
Phonemic Awareness
Phonemic Awareness falls under the umbrella of phonological awareness. This is a student’s awareness of and ability to orally manipulate phonemes, the smallest unit of sound. Here are specific assessments with examples of questions to ask.
- Phoneme Matching – What two words sound alike? Provide 3 words to the student with 2 of them having the same initial, ending, or medial sound.
- Phoneme Isolation – What is the first sound in ___? What is the middle sound in ___? What is the last sound in ___?
- Phoneme Blending – What word do these sounds make? Example say /c/- /a/ -/t/ and the student will say /cat/
- Phoneme Segmentation – What sounds do you hear in ___? Example say /cat/ and the student will say /c/-/a/-/t/.
- Phoneme Deletion – Say (word) without the (sound). Example, say /cat/ without the /at/ and the student will say /c/
- Phoneme Manipulation – Say (word). Now change (sound) to (sound). For example, say /cat/. Now change the /c/ to /p/ and student will say /pat/
Nonsense Words
Teachers can assess students’ ability to decode unknown words through the use of nonsense words. By using made up words it strictly focuses on students’ phonemic awareness. Students are unable to rely on their memory to read these words and must apply their phonics skills. (Disclaimer: nonsense words are a controversial topic in the literacy world. Some experts advise against using them, while others view them as an effective assessment tool).
Sight Words
There are multiple ways to assess students’ sight word knowledge: in context, in isolation, or in writing. Teachers can document which sight words students read incorrectly while reading. You can also show students individual words to see if students can read them (flashcards are typically used for this). Another quick check is starting your small group by having students write 3-5 sight words on a whiteboard.
Sentence Dictation
Sentence dictation is a way to assess students’ spelling skills. Start by having students write a specific sentence. Teachers can then analyze students’ application of the targeted spelling words. You can see if they wrote the spelling words correctly within the context of a sentence or if they were able to transfer the spelling skills to new words. (For example if “bake” was a spelling word, students should be able to spell “flake”).
You can also use sentence dictation to assess students’ application of phonics skills in writing. For example, you can notice students who wrote incorrect vowel sounds, reversed blends sounds, omitted endings, and so forth.
Reading Fluency
There are multiple ways to assess students’ fluency. One minute reads are a popular method. Students read a passage for one minute. The teacher then adds up the number of words read correctly within a minute (wcpm). Hasbrouck and Tindal have a norms chart to determine appropriate wcpm by grade level. (Disclaimer: many researchers advise against using one minute reads for progress monitoring).
Another way to assess students’ fluency is through a running record. You can time a student while reading to determine their words read correctly per minute (wcpm).
Total # words read _____ x (multiply by) 60; ÷ (divide by) # of seconds to read passage = words per minute (wpm)
You can also informally assess students reading fluency by listening to them read aloud. Pay attention to students who read word by word, speed read, or lack expression. Be sure to document these observations.
Running Records
Running Records are a way of analyzing a student’s reading behaviors. As a student reads aloud, the teacher records incorrect words, omissions, decoding attempts, rereading, fluency rate, and expression. . For additional information, you may want to check out blog post about administering running records.
Utilizing the Data
Ultimately the goal of administering informal quick checks is to gain additional information about students. Unless stated by your school or district, there is not a set list of required quick checks. Teachers can utilize these assessments at their discretion. The frequency that these are administered is completely up to the teacher.
You may decide to administer them for baseline data, to progress monitor at-risk students, or just obtain additional information for your own knowledge. Whatever your reason is for using these assessments, make it a priority to actually use the data! This data should be used to plan targeted instruction based on students’ needs as well as to progress monitoring to ensure that the instruction is effective.
What informal quick checks do you administer? How do you utilize the data provided by these assessments? Share with us in the comments below!
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