RE 3030 SL Smiley
Early Reading Screening Inventory (ERSI)
Instructions
For this assessment, you will be working individually
with a kindergartener or low-level first grader. Please
ask for the teacher’s help in selecting one child to test.
This test is administered individually – one child at a
time. You may observe each other (in pairs) as you
conduct the test, however; the assessment that you
personally give will be your findings report.
Purpose: This individual assessment is designed to
take a careful and detailed look at patterns of strength
and weakness in an individual child. The test was
intentionally created to give you (and the teacher)
critical information about a child’s basic knowledge of print. This very detailed
diagnostic information can be used to make both general and highly specific
adjustments to instruction.
You Will:
1. Prepare your materials
2. Administer the test and mark the score sheets
3. Total the score sheets
4. Interpret and summarize the results
5. Write a description of your results and make suggestions for instruction (paragraph)
6. Download, complete, save, and submit form to TaskStream.
Administering the Test: The following directions are taken from Every Child Reading
by Morris & Slavin (2003).
Alphabet Task- You will use the sheet with the upper and lower case letters. Ask the
child to tell you the name of the letters presented on the sheet. (You may have her point
to the letters to keep track.) Mark the score sheet as the child tells you the letters. For
omissions, circle the letter. For an incorrect response, put a slash through the letter and
write the child’s response next to it. The score is 0-26 for upper case and 0-26 for lower
case. After that, use the “Randomized Alphabet for Dictation” sheet with the upper case
letters and ask the child to write the letters as you call them out. (It does not matter if the
child writes the letters in upper or lower case.) You may use the sheet with the “star” or
the back of the spelling sheet. Watch the child as she writes each letter as she may not
have left to right directionality yet. The score for writing the letters is 0-26.
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RE 3030 SL Smiley
Concept of Word Task- You will read the “Katie” book together for this task. Turn to
page one of the book and say the following:
The sentence down here (pointing to the first printed sentence) says “Katie is...”
tells what is happening in the picture. I am going to point to each word as I read;
then I want you to point to each word as you read.
You then finger-point read the first page and then ask the child to do the same. You
may say something like, “Now it’s your turn.” Then the child attempts to finger-point
read the page.
After the child has read, you immediately point to the first target word (the target words
are italicized on your score sheet) and ask, “Can you read this word?” Then, point to
the next target word and say, “What about this one?” NOTE CAREFULLY the ORDER
in which you are to point to the target words. You will find the numbers listed above the
target word. For example:
2
1
1. Katie is walking in the rain.
You record the child’s response for each. Continue to follow the same steps for each
page of the book. Make sure you are completing the score sheet AS EACH
SENTENCE IS COMPLETED. The finger-point reading attempts are scored in an allor-nothing manner. That is, the child receives credit only if she points to and reads
each word in the sentence. In this case, self-corrections are acceptable. The child
receives a total score on this task of 0-12. 4 points are possible on finger-point read
and 8 points are possible for word identification attempts.
Spelling Task- You begin this by modeling a sound-it-out spelling of the word mat.
Follow the dialogue below:
We are going to write the word mat. What letter should I write down first? (Offer
praise if you are given the correct response and write the letter down. If the child
gives the wrong letter or fails to respond at all, simply tell the letter and write it
down on the paper.) M is the first letter in the word mat. What letter should we
write down next? (Complete the same steps for the letters a and t.)
After the spelling sample is completed give the spelling sheet (numbered 1-6) to the
child and say:
Now, I’m going to call out more words and I want you to try to write them.
For each word, think about what letter comes first, what letter comes next,
and so on. Okay, the first word I want you to write is back.
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RE 3030 SL Smiley
During the test, make sure to pronounce all of the words clearly, but do not exaggerate
or elongate the sounds in the words. There are 0-20 points possible for this test, which
are for the number of sounds the child represents in her spellings. The words back,
feet, road, and dig all have 3 phonemes. The words step and jump have 4 phonemes.
See the chart below for scoring examples:
Spelling Word
1 point
2 points
3 points
4 points
back
B, BN
BC, BK, BA,
BIK
BAC, BAK,
BACK
N/A
feet
F, FA
FT, FE, FOT
FET, FETE,
FEET
N/A
step
S, C, SO
ST, CP, SE, SA
STP, SDP,
SAP, CEP
STAP, SDAP,
STEP
jump
J, G
JP, GP, JO, GU
JOP, GOP,
JUP, JMP
JOMP, GUMP,
JUMP
road
R, RW
RD, RO
ROD, ROAD
N/A
dig
D
DG, DE
DEG, DIG
N/A
Word Recognition Task- Point to each word (one at a time) and ask the child to read
the word to you. The first five words on the list are high-frequency sight words and the
last five are short vowel, decodable words. Mark them right or wrong. The score for
this task will be 0-10 points.
Written Summary: Based on the results, write a paragraph describing relative
strengths and weaknesses in the different areas, but pay special attention to (and
address) the alphabet knowledge and the phoneme awareness subtests. What kind of
instruction (be specific) would help this child continue to grow?
You will need to turn in to me the completed ERSI score sheets (both of them), the
student’s alphabet production and spelling sheet, and the TaskStream document.
Below you will find the form for TaskStream. 
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RE 3030 SL Smiley
RE 3030 SL Smiley
Complete this work sheet, save it, and submit it to TaskStream.
Early Reading Screening Inventory (ERSI)
Name of Examiner:___________________________________________________________
School: ____________________________________________________________________
Student’s First Name ______________________________ Grade Level Tested: __________
Teacher’s Name: ____________________________________________________________
ERSI Task
Student Score
Upper Case Alphabet Recognition (+26)
Lower Case Alphabet Recognition (+26)
Alphabet Production (+26)
Concept of Word (+12)
Spelling – Phoneme Awareness (+20)
Word Recognition (+10)
TOTAL SCORE:_____________
Summary of findings:
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RE 3030 SL Smiley
Randomized Alphabet for Dictation (Morris, 2000)
A
F
K
P
W
Z
B
H
O
J
U
C
Y
L
Q
M
D
N
S
X
I
E
G
R
V
T
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