PHONICS INVENTORY

Printed with Permission from the Reading Success Network of the Southern California Comprehensive Assistance Center

Phonics is a way of teaching reading and spelling that stresses symbol-sound relationships, used especially in beginning instruction.

To become skillful readers, children must learn how to decode words instantly and effortlessly.
The role of effective phonics instruction is to help children understand, apply, and learn the alphabetic principle and conventions of written language.
Students need to be individually assessed so that they can be grouped according to instructional needs. That is the purpose of the current tool.

Materials

Administer 3-5 sections of the inventory or until the child exhibits signs of frustration.
Place child's name and test date at the top of teacher's copy.
The use of colored markers/pens will make it easier to measure student growth during the year.
Circle the items missed by the child. On the additional testing, continue to circle items missed but place a slash mark through newly acquired knowledge from previous testing.
Place a slash mark and date where test has been stopped. Example, /7-97
Place students into homogeneous instructional groups, for phonics lessons based on student need.
Re-evaluate students periodically to measure results of systematic, explicit teaching of phonics.