Your School Name
Your District Name
Street Address
City Name, Minnesota Zip Code
Administration Office Telephone 999/999-9999 - FAX 999/999-9999
Fall Kindergarten
Name.
.
Teacher.
.
. Date .
.
These are the two kindergarten fall measurements your child was given.
Letter Naming Fluency: Your child was able to name.
.letters in one
minute. The fall Letter Naming Fluency is considered a measure of exposure to
print and
Letter Sound Fluency: Your child was able to name _____ letter sounds in one
minute. Our fall goal is to have all students above 8 letters sounds per minute.
By the spring of kindergarten our goal is to have all children name 40+ letter
sounds per minute.
This is how we measure Letter Naming Fluency and Letter Sound
Fluency:
Sample 1
c
c
K
b
n
w
T
m
s
x
Z
p
N
d
P
b
h
f
g
R
A
s
v
O e
u
Y
k
z
C
n
b
k
F
t
J
H
s
r
g
O M y
c
c
L
R
z
w
u
Letter naming and sound fluency measures a student’s
automaticity, or fluency, in recognizing a series of random
letters. There is much research showing that early fluency
measures such as this are indicators of a student’s future ability
to read. The letter naming probe has both lower and uppercase
letters, while the letter sound probes only have lower case.
As a student’s fluency improves, their "brain power" can attend
to more demanding skills such as decoding.
On Letters Naming Fluency, the examiner gives the child the
student copy, and one minute to identify as many letters as
possible. The examiner marks the student responses on a
copy. On Letter Sound Fluency, the examiner counts the
number of letter sounds per minute. Letter Sound Fluency is
more critical than Letter Naming. Parents should be
concentrating on letter sounds rather than letter names.
Fall Kindergarten
Here are some quick and easy things you can do with your child to help him or
her learn about the sounds in words and to recognize letters and sounds. Of
course, the most important thing you can do is to read with your child everyday.
[Type text]
Word Play
Play with familiar words (your child’s name, family names etc.). Change the
words by changing the beginning letter: robin, bobbin, hobin, dobin, lobin, etc.
Rhymes All Around
While you are walking or driving in the car, try to make rhymes for the things
around you. They can be nonsense and silly words, too!
Magnetic Letters
Boxes of magnetic letters can be found at most grocery and discount stores. Put
your child’s name on the refrigerator and label photos and other drawings with
the beginning sounds or the whole word. Point out the letter names and sounds
and let your child play with the letters.
Sounds & Letter All Around
Use old newspapers and magazines to pick a “special letter” or letters with your
child. Have your child circle or cut out every special letter they can find. Have
your child find a certain letter or sound on cereal boxes, cans, and other things
around the house.
Play with Letters and Sounds
Make up ways to remember the sounds of the letters such as a
mmm…mmm…good for the m.
Check out alphabet books from the library.
Teach the names and sounds in your child’s name and names of his or her family
members, friends, and pets.
Tell me what you see…
Look at pictures in books, photo albums, magazines, or newspapers, and have
your child describe what he or she sees in the pictures. Have him or her make
up a story to go along with the picture and tell it to you.
Developed by Scott Linner and Jamie Harper: Kenai Peninsula Borough School District
Acknowledgement for use of website materialsFlorida Department of Education, http://www.firn.edu/doe (April 2001)
ReferencesAdams, M.J., Foorman, B., Lundberg, I., Beeler, T. (1998) Phonemic Awareness in Young
Children. Baltimore: Paul Brookes.
Blevins, W. (1998). Phonics from A to Z: A Practical Guide.
New York: Scholastic.
O’Connor, R., Notari-Syverson, A., Vadasy, P. (1998). Ladders to Literacy: A Kindergarten
Activity Book. Baltimore: Paul Brookes.
Rees, D., Raison, G., Jones, B., Pugh, C., Sinclair, A., Dewsbury, A., Lambert, S. (1994) First
Steps Reading Resource Book. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
[Type text]
Winter Kindergarten
Name.
Teacher.
.
.
.Date .
.
These are the three kindergarten winter measurements your child was given.
Letter Naming Fluency: Your child was able to name.
.letters in one minute.
Letter Sound Fluency: Your child was able to name _____ letter sounds in one minute. Our Winter goal
is to have all students at or above 16 letters sounds per minute. By the spring of kindergarten our goal is to
have all children name 40+ letter sounds per minute.
Phoneme Segmentation Fluency: Your child was able to name .
. phonemes (individual sounds) in
one minute. By the spring of kindergarten our goal is to have all children name 35+ phonemes per minute.
This is how we measure Letter Naming Fluency and Letter Sound
Flunecy:
Letter naming and sound fluency measures a student’s automaticity, or
fluency, in recognizing a series of random letters. There is much research
showing that early fluency measures such as this are indicators of a
student’s future ability to read.
Sample 1
c
c
K
b
n
w
T
m
s
x
Z
p
N
d
P
b
h
f
g
R
A
s
v
O e
u
Y
k
z
C
n
b
k
F
t
J
H
s
r
g
O M y
c
c
L
R
z
w
u
As a student’s fluency improves, their "brain power" can attend to more
demanding skills such as decoding.
On Letters Naming Fluency, the examiner gives the child the student copy,
and one minute to identify as many letters as possible. The examiner
marks the student responses on a copy. On Letter Sound Fluency, the
examiner counts the number of letter sounds per minute. Letter Sounds
are much more important for children to master than letter names.
This is how we measure Phoneme Segmentation Fluency:
Phoneme segmentation fluency measures a student's ability
to distinguish individual phonemes (sounds) in a word. The
student is timed for one minute, and the number of correct
individual phonemes is recorded.
As a student increases his/her phonemic awareness, they are
better able to identify and hear individual sounds in a word.
This assessment measures the phonological awareness of a
child.
Shown to the right is a sample of the assessment. The
examiner reads each word and the student responds with the
individual sounds of the word. The examiner writes the
student responses on the sheet.
[Type text]
Sample Probe 1
pad
/p/ /a/ /d/
sock /s/ /o/ /k/
fat
/f/ /a/ /t/
tick
fine
/f/ /ie/ /n/
boys /b/ /oi/ /z/
float
/f/ /l/ /oa/ /t/
skin
/t/ /i/ /k/
/s/ /k/ /i/ /n/
Winter Kindergarten
Here are some quick and easy things you can do with your child to help him or
her learn about the sounds in words and to recognize letters and sounds. Of
course, the most important thing you can do is to read with your child everyday.
Have your child choose a word (for example, bear). Ask him or her to identify the
first sound of that word. If your child is unable to find the first sound, help him/her
find that sound, (B-b-b-bear).
I Spy or I’m thinking of something…
Play this game with your child – I spy something that begins with the sound s-s-ss-s-s-s. Keep describing the object until your child guesses the object.
Emphasize the beginning sound of the object (Yes, spider begins with “ssssss.”).
Remember to say the sound of the letter, not the letter name.
Sing silly songs
Pick a sound and have your child exchange that sound for the beginning sounds
of all the words in a familiar song or just the words in the chorus. For example:
In “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” change “merrily, merrily, merrily” to “jerrily, jerrily,
jerrily” or in “Happy Birthday to You” change the song to “Bappy Birthday bo
Bou…”
Sound Hunt
Have your child hunt for things around the house that start with a given sound –
find all the things that start with the “mmmmm” sound. When riding in the car,
look for things that start with a sound. Try to see how many sounds you can
collect on the trip.
Guess it!
Say a word with the beginning sound or sounds broken from the rest and have
the child guess it “I’m thinking of a /p/----/ig/. What is it? Child “A pig!”
Developed by Scott Linner and Jamie Harper: Kenai Peninsula Borough School District,
Alaska
Acknowledgement for use of website materials - Florida Department of Education,
http://www.firn.edu/doe (April 2001)
ReferencesAdams, M.J., Foorman, B., Lundberg, I., Beeler, T. (1998) Phonemic Awareness in Young
Children. Baltimore: Paul Brookes.
Blevins, W. (1998). Phonics from A to Z: A Practical Guide.
New York: Scholastic.
O’Connor, R., Notari-Syverson, A., Vadasy, P. (1998). Ladders to Literacy: A Kindergarten
Activity Book. Baltimore: Paul Brookes.
Rees, D., Raison, G., Jones, B., Pugh, C., Sinclair, A., Dewsbury, A., Lambert, S. (1994) First
Steps Reading Resource Book. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
[Type text]
Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills
Spring Kindergarten
Name.
Teacher.
.
.
.Date .
.
These are the four kindergarten spring measurements your child was given.
Letter Naming Fluency: Your child was able to name.
.letters in one minute.
Letter Sound Fluency: Your child was able to name _____ letter sounds in one minute. Our Winter goal
is to have all students above 16 letters sounds per minute. By the spring of kindergarten our goal is to
have all children name 36+ letter sounds per minute.
Nonsense Word Fluency: Your child was able to read .
.correct letter sounds in one
minute. Our goal is to have all children name 25+ letter sounds per minute.
This is how we measure Letter Naming Fluency and Letter Sound Flunecy:
Sample 1
c
c
K
b
n
w
T
m
s
x
Z
p
N
d
P
b
h
f
g
R
A
s
v
O e
u
Y
k
z
C
n
b
k
F
t
J
H
s
r
g
O M y
c
c
L
R
z
w
u
Letter naming and sound fluency measures a student’s automaticity, or fluency, in
recognizing a series of random letters. There is much research showing that early
fluency measures such as this are indicators of a student’s future ability to read.
As a student’s fluency improves, their "brain power" can attend to more demanding
skills such as decoding.
On Letters Naming Fluency, the examiner gives the child the student copy, and one
minute to identify as many letters as possible. The examiner marks the student
responses on a copy. On Lletter Sound Fluency, the examiner counts the number of
letter sounds per minute. Letter Sound F
luency is more critical than letter naming.
This is how we measure Nonsense Word Fluency:
Probe 1
sok
vos
ut
lut
kag
san
az
mof
lat
nid
og
zof
pav
mel
yik
av
fef
wis
hos
voj
Nonsense word fluency measures a student’s ability to produce individual
letter sounds and then blend them together to read. The student is timed for
one minute, and the number of correct letter sounds is recorded.
Shown to the right is a sample of the nonsense word fluency assessment.
The student attempts to say each sound or read the whole word. The
examiner writes the student responses on the examiner sheet.
Spring Kindergarten
Here are some quick and easy things you can do with your child to help him/her
learn about the sounds and letters in words and to begin to become a reader. Of
course, the most important thing you can do is to read with your child everyday.
Make Silly Sentences
Have your child make sentences that all begin with the same letter sound: “Six
snakes sell sodas.”
[Type text]
Clap the sounds
Say simple words starting with two sounds and working up. Have your child clap
for each sound in the word. If this task is too difficult, start with compound words
like /pop/ /corn/ and have them clap for each word.
Alphabet Hopscotch
Use sidewalk chalk to make a hopscotch board with alphabet letters. As your
child grows, you can also put simple short words in the hopscotch squares.
Play “Say it Fast”
Break a word into parts and have your child say it fast. “Look, there’s a spi-der.
Can you say it fast?” As your child grows, you can make this more challenging
by breaking the word into individual sounds. “Look, there’s a m-oo-se, can you
say it fast?”
Which one of these words is not like the other?
Say a series of words with the same beginning sound and one that starts with a
different sound. For example, “cat, car, can, mop.” Which one of these words is
not like the other? You can make this more difficult as your child progresses by
working with ending sounds too.
Developed by Scott Linner and Jamie Harper: Kenai Peninsula Borough School District
Acknowledgement for use of website materialsFlorida Department of Education, http://www.firn.edu/doe (April 2001)
ReferencesAdams, M.J., Foorman, B., Lundberg, I., Beeler, T. (1998) Phonemic Awareness in Young
Children. Baltimore: Paul Brookes.
Blevins, W. (1998). Phonics from A to Z: A Practical Guide.
New York: Scholastic.
O’Connor, R., Notari-Syverson, A., Vadasy, P. (1998). Ladders to Literacy: A Kindergarten
Activity Book. Baltimore: Paul Brookes.
Rees, D., Raison, G., Jones, B., Pugh, C., Sinclair, A., Dewsbury, A., Lambert, S. (1994) First
Steps Reading Resource Book. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
[Type text]