Phonics Observation Survey Assessment

Megan Holmberg
Mount Vernon Nazarene University
ECE3063 Basics of Phonics Instruction
May 4, 2014
Linda Pickenpaugh, MA
Phonics Observation Survey
To develop and further my understanding of the basics of phonics, I completed several
assessments with a five year old girl named Jemma. Jemma is still a very young five year old and
at the very beginning stages of reading, writing, and spelling. She has been attending some
classes, ultimately she will be homeschooled once she begins first grade.
The first assessment I completed with Jemma was letter recognition. She did exceedingly
well, recognizing all but a few letters. Jemma has excellent control of her letters, knowing and
recognizing both lower and uppercase. Her ability to recognize individual letters proved to be
very helpful as I continued through the various assessments with her.
The next assessment I looked at with Jemma was word reading. Because of her mastery
of letters and beginning letter sounds, her word reading is also very straightforward. It takes her
some time to sound through each word as she reads, but she eventually gets there. I felt it was
important to give Jemma time because she is still developing her skills (http://www.misd.net/
MLPP/assessments/hearingRecordingSounds/default.htm). It is apparent that she is working to
build connections between letters, how the sound, and building words, which fits with the idea
that, Letter-sound relationships of phonics, word order of the text, and the meaning of language
are three types of informationor cuesthat support readers as they make sense of the authors
messages" (Fox, 2008, p. 11). Once again, she did better than I initially anticipated. If asked, she
may not always be able to correctly spell a word, but it is important to note that she is able to
sound out basic words and is obviously learning. It was actually based on this assessment that I
developed my lesson plan. I believe that if Jemma can master all of the different sounds each
letter can make, this will greatly aid her as I reader and writer.
When asked to complete the writing vocabulary activity, Jemma has a lot of difficulty. I
asked Jemma to write all the words she knew or could think of, but she first claimed to know
none. This strategy of testing a childs knowledge works well with a child who is developing the
beginning stages of writing. It is my opinion that this may be a bit advanced for young Jemma,
who became frustrated as I prompted her to write any word she could think of. This assessment
is not included in my artifacts because Jemma did not choose to write anything down.
With the concepts about print assessment, Jemma and I used Follow Me Moon. At first
she was confused and surprised when seeing how the words and pictures flipped around. I had to
explain that I was glad that I was happy that she was noticing the mistakes. After that, she
thought the book was funny and enjoyed trying to find what she was wrong or needed corrected.
Prior to Follow Me Moon, Jemma and I looked at Goodnight Moon for fun. I did not have
her read to me, but simply gave her the book to flip through. As she looked at each page, she
would drag her finger across the word from left to right, going down line by line while making
up her own story based off the pictures. I was impressed at her overall understanding of direction
when reading and using pictures for context clues, even if she did not actually read either story.
This shows that she has already mastered some of the beginning steps of reading.
For the hearing and recording sounds in words assessment, children must be able to
correctly copy down words and sentences in print after hearing them read verbally. This involves
being able to identify individual sounds when spelling out unknown words. A child must have a
more developed sense of phonics to overlap their understanding of letters and sounds to complete
words and sentences. Jemma is a young five year old, and is still developing sound recognition.
However, I believe this type of assessment is highly valuable because it combines many different
skills. Although her attempt at spelling each word was not perfect, Jemma did well on this
assessment. She left off certain silent letters (i.e. hav for have).
To further test Jemmas phonics development, I would complete a running record with
her. However, because of scheduling issued, Jemma and I never got to meet to complete this last
assessment. Based on her other assessments, I believe she would have needed a low-level book,
consistent with her being at the beginning stages of reading and writing. I know she will continue
developing as a reader because her parents are focused on growing her, providing her with a
variety of books, with an emphasis on bedtime stories (http://www.misd.net/MLPP/assessments/
hearingRecordingSounds/default.htm).
Reading and writing, and just an overall sense of literacy are necessary to becoming a
successful communicator. Although, Reading, like thinking, is a complex process, I know that
Jemma will excel as she continues being developed and taught through a variety of methods
(Clay, 2005, p. 14). This is so important not only in the classroom, but also in day-to-day life.
Teachers should monitor this ability so that students can be encouraged and continually stretched
in their learning.
References
Clay, M. (2005). An observation survey of early literacy achievement. Auckland, NZ:
Heinemann.
Fox, B.J. (2012). Word identification strategies: Building phonics into a classroom reading
program. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc.
Hearing and recording sounds. (n.d.). Retrieved from
http://www.misd.net/MLPP/assessments/hearingRecordingSounds/default.htm