Assessing and Instructing Letter-Sound Correspondence

Assessing letter-sound correspondence
Language and literacy skills serve as key measures to a child’s ability to read, communicate, and succeed in almost all areas of learning (Cunningham & Stanovich, 1997; Clayton et al., 2020; Purpura, 2011), justifying the heavy emphasis from policymakers, education boards, and families on measuring these skills (Strickland & Ayers, 2006; Teale 2008). For assessments in language and literacy to be useful to educators and to students, it needs to go beyond standardized screenings and outcomes-based assessments. Teachers need tools for ongoing, direct, formative assessment to make instructional adjustments based on what students know (Teale, 2008, Piasta, 2014).

​Furthermore, the variability among preschool children in letter-knowledge, phonological awareness, and other preliteracy skills, language and literacy makes assessing in small groups or individually far more effective and informative (Chapman, 2003). Assessing language and literacy skills such as alphabet recognition or letter-sound correspondence allows for small group and individualized  instruction, ensuring each young learner gets the support they need (Piasta, 2014).

The Cognitive ToyBox Letter-Sound Correspondence game assesses students’ recognition of the 26 letter sounds taught at the preschool level. Students can demonstrate their knowledge through game-based assessment, allowing teachers to review and adjust instruction accordingly.

One of six game-based assessments offered on language and literacy, the Cognitive ToyBox Letter-Sound Correspondence game provides teachers with an easy way to gauge which of the 26 letter sounds students are able to recognize and which sounds they still have difficulty with. Assessments are always placed in the context of the whole child, taken in combination with what the teacher observes and in relation to other language and literacy skills. 

The Common Core Reading Foundational Standard for Kindergarteners states that students should be able to “demonstrate basic knowledge of one-to-one letter-sound correspondences by producing the primary sound or many of the most frequent sounds for each consonant” (Common Core State Standards Initiative, 2021). Early childhood educators can use the Cognitive ToyBox formative assessment on letter-sound correspondence to move toward this goal. Once teachers know which letters each student is working to master, they can make instructional adjustments. In classrooms teaching phonemes systematically, teachers can focus on directly teaching the letter-sounds with which their students need more practice. In whole language approach classrooms, teachers can make note of letter-sounds to introduce through reading materials or class activities. No matter their approach to early reading and writing, teachers will have the information they need to ensure each child starts school ready to succeed.

How do I use assessment data collected on letter-sound correspondence to inform instruction?
Once a teacher has collected assessment data on their students’ letter-sound correspondence, they can review those data at the class and individual levels to determine next instructional steps. At the class level, the teacher can determine which letter-sounds most students (e.g., about 75-85%) can and cannot recognize. A subset of these sounds (3-5) can then be targeted for practice and instruction during whole group activities such as circle time and transitions. Once one subset has been mastered by most students, the teacher can introduce the next subset of letter-sounds. 

Teachers can then use the data to determine differentiated small groups based on skill level. Often, students can be broken into 3 homogeneous groups based on how many letter-sounds they can recognize. For example, students who know 50% or less of the sounds are in group 1, students who know 50-75% of the sounds are in group 2, and students who know more than 75% of the sounds are in group 3. Group 1 requires the most direct instruction support, group 2 is on track and can continue regular instruction, and group 3 is advanced and could benefit from more challenging instruction. The teacher may provide group 1 with more frequent direct instruction in smaller subsets of known and unknown sounds, while the other two groups experience larger instructional subsets and more whole language instruction (i.e. applied practice of literacy skills). 

The reason for including known letter-sounds in addition to unknown letter-sounds in an instructional subset is to give students a chance to succeed while learning new content; in other words, they are bound to get at least some letter-sounds correct as they learn unknown ones. Additionally, as a best practice, letter names and letter sounds should be taught in small groups rather than in isolation. For example, the concept of “The letter of this week is B” is less effective than “This week we’re learning the sounds /b/, /l/ and /r/” because by having other sounds in the instructional group, students learn to differentiate between the sounds. When taught a single sound in isolation without referencing other sounds, once the teacher moves on to a new sound the next week, students may forget the initial sound. For this reason, teachers should also always bring back previously learned sounds into the mix to ensure retention. 

In terms of direct instruction, teachers can create activities to target the following student behaviors in whole group, small group, and individual instruction. 

• Receptive/listening skills 
  • Given a group of letters, and the instruction “give me the sound ____,” or “which letter makes the sound ____,” the student chooses the correct letter corresponding to that sound 
    • The size and composition of the group can vary based on students’ skill level. For beginners, use a group of 3 and make sure the letter sounds are clearly distinct (e.g., /b/ and /m/). For more advanced learners, use a group of 8 and include letters that may have similar sounds (e.g., /b/ and /d/). 
  • Sample activities: 
    • Whole group circle time: Each student receives a printed letter card. When the teacher says a sound, the student with the letter that makes that sound stands up (or does a silly action)
    • Whole group transition time: When the teacher says or shows /m/ students clap 3 times, when the teacher says /r/ students jump 3 times. 
    • Small group: Print letters onto small fish cutouts and attach a magnet to each, with a “fishing pole” with the opposite magnet. When the teacher says a sound, the student “fishes” out the corresponding letter. Students take turns fishing, and they can even take turns picking out a printed letter and calling out the sound. 
• Expressive/speaking skills 
  • Given a letter, and the instruction “what sound does it make?” the student correctly produces the sound that corresponds to the letter (or one of the common sounds if the letter corresponds to more than one sound such as /c/) 
    • Be sure to say the word “sound” when targeting letter-sounds. Sometimes people simply say, “What is it?” or “What’s the letter?” or “What does it say?”; these are unclear questions that may produce other answers (e.g., letter name) and the priority is that students connect a printed letter to its corresponding sound. (When targeting letter names as well, teachers should explicitly say “What is the name of this letter?” Eventually, when students begin to learn both letter names and sounds in conjunction, the teacher can show a printed letter and ask both its letter name, its letter sound, and a word that starts with that letter sound to connect skills together.) 
    • To ensure students learn the sounds apart from the specific characteristics of the printed and/or 3D letters shown, be sure to use uppercase and lowercase letters in different fonts, colors, and sizes as examples. 
    • Teachers should review the correct pronunciation of phonemes before this instruction to ensure they are targeting the correct student responses. For example, the letter “m” makes the sound “mmm” rather than “mm-uh”; sometimes people add an “uh” to the end of a sound which is incorrect since when blending the sounds of a word together they should only use the sound itself. Teachers should also avoid teaching students to repeat a given sound multiple times when answering (e.g., “this sound is b-b-b-”) since when blending words eventually students will only need to say the sound once. 
  • Sample activities: 
    • Whole group circle or transition time: Have a bucket of printed letters. Children reach in, pull out a letter, and say the corresponding sound while doing a silly dance. 
    • Small group: Bury 3D letters in the sand table. Students pretend to be archaeologists digging up letter fossils. When they find a letter, they have to say the sound it makes to be able to keep the letter in their pile of findings. 
• Writing skills 
  • For advanced students who are proficient in writing letter names, the teacher says “write the sound ____” 

In terms of targeting the benefits of whole language instruction, the teacher can incorporate letter sounds into various modalities and materials in order to (1) promote a love of reading, and (2) demonstrate the value of letter sounds in the context of reading. For example, during activities when printed text is involved (e.g., calendar, story time), the teacher can call on a student to be the “Sound Inspector.” The teacher points to a specific letter in a word, and the student says the corresponding sound. The teacher may then explain that that specific word begins with or ends with that sound; they may say out loud the other sounds in the word while pointing to the corresponding letters; and they may model decoding the word by saying the sounds slowly in sequence and then faster. As another example, after the teacher writes down students’ responses to the Question of the Day on chart paper, they might have students come up and underline wherever they see the letter that makes the sound /n/. Then, the class reads the poem together again while emphasizing or drawing out the sound whenever they get to the letter “n” (i.e., “nnn”). 

Ideally, teachers utilize assessment data to inform instruction and assess students regularly to determine whether their instructional efforts are effective. If students are not making sufficient progress between checkpoints, the teacher may need to change or enhance their instructional strategies. The most effective literacy instruction would include both explicit instruction of phonemes in isolation, as well as indirect instruction of phonemes along with other preliteracy skills in the context of spoken language, printed words, and read-alouds. 

References Cited

• Chapman, M.L. (2003). Phonemic Awareness: Clarifying What We Know. Literacy Teaching and Learning 7(1&2),  91–114. 
• Clayton, F.J., West, G., Sears, C., Hulme, C., & Lervåg, A. (2020). A Longitudinal Study of Early Reading Development: Letter-Sound Knowledge, Phoneme Awareness and RAN, but Not Letter-Sound Integration, Predict Variations in Reading Development. Scientific Studies of Reading, 24(2), 91-107. DOI: 10.1080/10888438.2019.1622546
• Common Core State Standards Initiative. (2021). English Language Arts Standards Reading: Foundational Skills Kindergarten. http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RF/K/3/a/ 
• Cunningham, A.E., & Stanovich, K.E. (1997). Early reading acquisition and its relation to reading experience and ability 10 years later. Developmental Psychology, 33, 934-945. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.33.6.934 
• Piasta, S.B. (2014). ​​Moving to Assessment-Guided Differentiated Instruction to Support Young Children's Alphabet Knowledge. The Reading Teacher, 68(3): 202-211. https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.1316
• Purpura, D.J., Hume, L.E., Sims, D.M., & Lonigan, C.J. (2011). Early literacy and early numeracy: The value of including early literacy skills in the prediction of numeracy development. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 110(4), 647-658,https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2011.07.004.
• Strickland, D.S., & Riley-Ayers, S. (2006, April). Early Literacy: Policy and Practice in the Preschool Years. National Institute for Early Education Research Policy Brief. https://nieer.org/policy-issue/policy-brief-early-literacy-policy-and-practice-in-the-preschool-years 
• Teale, W. H. (2008). What Counts? Literacy Assessment in Urban Schools. The Reading Teacher, 62(4), 358–361. DOI:10.1598/RT.62.4.10