Transitional Assessment: Early Conventional Literacy Skills
The Transitional Literacy assessment consists of 8 tasks:
- Letter Sound Identification (from Clendon & Erickson, 2004)
- Concept of Word with the Katie book (Morris, 1998)
- Word recognition of basal words via reading (Morris, 1998)
- Phonological Awareness in Rhyme Detection & Phoneme Matching (Gillon, 2005)
- Phoneme Awareness via spelling (Morris, 1998)
- Word recognition of decodable words via reading (Morris, 1998)
- Comprehension with I like animals and I want (Farrall 2015)
- Three writing samples assessed with the Writing with All Tools Continuum (Farrall, 2022)
These tasks are from different sources:
- Concept of Word tasks, word recognition tasks and phoneme awareness task from Morris, D. (1998) Assessing printed word knowledge in beginning readers: The Early Reading Screening Instrument (ERSI). Illinois Reading Council Journal, 26(2), 30 – 39
- The Letter Sound task is from Clendon & Erickson (2004), Centre for Literacy and Disability Studies
- The Phonological Awareness Probes are from Gillon, G. (2005). Phonological Awareness Assessment Probes. Retrieved from http://www.education.canterbury.ac.nz/people/gillon/PA%20Assessment%20probe%20instructions.pdf
- The Comprehension tasks were written by Farrall (2015) Jane Farrall Consulting www.janefarrall.com
- The writing task uses Writing with All Tools Continuum (Farrall, 2022)
Overall Information
The transitional literacy assessment is completed with the student present. On the instruction sheet you will find information on how to complete the assessment with a student who uses direct access or a student who uses partner assisted scanning. The direct access version is for a student who can reach out and point. The partner assisted scanning version is for a student who needs to respond to yes and no questions in order to participate in the assessment. The same record form is completed for all students.
Downloads & Materials
Overall Resources
- Transitional Literacy Assessment Instructions – Direct Access & Partner Assisted Scanning
- Transitional Literacy Assessment Student Record Form
Letter Sound Task resources
Concept of Word resources
You may want to get this professionally printed as a photo book at a company like Snapfish or Big W Photos so they look like “proper” books.
Word Recognition Resources
Phonological Awareness
- Rhyme Identification regular contrast
- Rhyme Identification high contrast
- Phoneme Matching regular contrast
- Phoneme Matching high contrast
Comprehension
Writing
Information about the Writing with All Tools Continuum is on the Writing Assessment page.
Additional Assessments
- Oxford Word List Assessment – to be done in term 1 each year to plan words for word wall
- Cloze Assessment – to be done approximately once per term to determine a student’s reading comprehension level for self-selected reading and comprehension instruction
- Developmental Spelling Test – to be completed approximately once per term to measure outcomes of phonics program