Free Phonics Assessment

Digital-Remote Phonics Assessment (PHA)

The Phonics Assessment (PHA) is Dystech’s new reading assessment tool. It is a single-word reading assessment that targets and covers the most common phonics concepts within the English language.

The Phonics Assessment allows students to demonstrate their knowledge and skills, while teachers and other literacy professionals gain a deeper understanding of their students’ phonic abilities.

Best of all it can be delivered remotely via our Dyscover platform.

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Instructions

The Phonics assessment explained.

Our Phonics Assessment will provide you with easily identifiable, colour-coded results indicating the accuracy of ten (10) phonics concepts (we call them categories). Each category contains 10 words, 5 real and 5 pseudo words. You can run the whole assessment or select specific categories to assess. This allows you to customise the assessment to suit your students’ needs. Below are the categories assessed.

CVC Syllables

CVC (Consonant-Vowel-Consonant) syllables. These syllables follow the pattern of a consonant followed by a vowel and then another consonant. They form simple, basic words in the English language, such as “cat,” “dog,” and “bus.” CVC syllables help young learners recognise and decode basic word structures.

CVC+ Syllables

CVC+ syllables build upon the CVC pattern by adding an extra consonant, creating four-letter words with the pattern Consonant-Vowel-Consonant-Consonant (CVCC) or Consonant-Consonant-Vowel-Consonant (CCVC). Examples include “rest” and “clap.” This category helps students understand more complex word structures.

Silent E Syllables

The ability to accurately recall every word in a given sentence.

Soft C & G

Soft C refers to the “s” sound made by the letter “c” when it appears before the vowels “e,”, “i,” or “y,” as in “city”, “cell” or “cycle”. Soft G refers to the “j” sound made by the letter “g” before “e,” “i,” or “y,” as in “gentle”, “giraffe”, and “gym”. This category teaches the different pronunciations of the letters “c” and “g” based on their position in a word.

Vowel Teams

Vowel teams are pairs of vowels that work together to create a single sound. They can produce long vowel sounds, as in “boat” and “rain,” or unique sounds, as in “ou” in “cloud” and “au” in “taunt.” This category helps learners recognize and decode vowel teams within words.

Diphthongs

Diphthongs are combinations of two adjacent vowels producing a noticeable sound change within the same syllable, such as “oi” in “boil” and “ou” in “house.” This category teaches the pronunciation of these unique vowel combinations.

Further Concepts

This category may include additional concepts, such as consonant blends, digraphs, and trigraphs, which involve two or more consonants working together to create a distinct sound.

R-Controlled Vowels

R-controlled vowels occur when a vowel is followed by the letter “r,” which alters the vowel’s pronunciation. Examples include “car,” “bird,” and “perfect”. This category helps learners understand the influence of “r” on vowel sounds.

Basic Affixes

Affixes are word parts that can be added to a base word or root to create a new word or change its meaning. Basic affixes include prefixes (added to the beginning of a word) and suffixes (added to the end of a word). This category teaches learners to recognize and understand common affixes.

Multisyllabic Words

Multisyllabic words are words with two or more syllables. This category helps learners break down longer, more complex words into smaller parts to improve their decoding and reading comprehension skills.