Phonological Awareness Assessments Reviewed

Table 1

Phonological Awareness Assessments Reviewed

Instrument / Ages/Grades / Subtests
(if applicable) / Purpose
Dynamic Indicators of Basic Literacy Skills (DIBELS; Good & Kaminski, 2007). / K / Initial sound
Phoneme segmentation / Classroom assessment
Progress monitoring
Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening for Pre-K (PALS-PreK; Invernizzi, Sullivan, Meier & Swank, 2004) / Pre K / Rhyme awareness, Beginning sound awareness / Classroom assessment
Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening for K (PALS-K; Invernizzi, Juel, Swank & Meier, 2007) / K / Rhyme awareness (individual & group)
Beginning sound awareness / Classroom assessment
Phonological Awareness Test-2 (PAT-2; Robertson & Salter, 2007) / 5 - 9 years / Rhyming, segmentation,
blending, isolation, deletion, substitution, blending / Identification
Screening
Test of Preschool Early Literacy (TOPEL; Lonigan, Wagner, & Rashotte, 2007) / 3 - 5 years / Phonological awareness subtest / Identification
Screening
Research
Test of Phonological Awareness-2+ (TOPA-2+; Torgesen & Bryant, 2004) / K / Initial sounds
Ending sounds / Screening
Classroom assessment
Yopp-Singer Test of Phoneme Segmentation (Yopp, 1995) / 5 - 7 years / N/A / Classroom assessment

Table 2

Tasks by Linguistic Unit and Task Operation

Synthesis / Analysis
Assessment / Linguistic unit / blending / detection / matching/
oddity / segmentation / production / elision / substitution
DIBELS / phoneme / x / x
PALS Pre-K / onset-rime
phoneme / x / x
PALS-K / onset-rime
phoneme / x / x
PAT-2 / syllable
onset-rime
phoneme / x
x / x / x
x / x / x / x
TOPEL / syllable
onset-rime
phoneme / x
x
x / x
x
x
TOPA-2 / phoneme / x
Yopp-Singer / phoneme / x

Table 3

Variations in Response Mode, Task Supports and Demands in Phonological Awareness Measures

Assessment/subtest / Items / Response Mode / Task Supports / Task Demands
DIBELS
Initial sound fluency / 6 / nonverbal
verbal / multiple-choice pictures / timed
Phoneme segmentation / 4 / nonverbal
verbal / timed
PALS Pre-K
Rhyme awareness (individual) / 10 / nonverbal (point) / multiple-choice
pictures
Rhyme awareness (group) / 10 / nonverbal
(circle) / multiple-choice
pictures / motor (circle)
group administered
Beginning sound awareness / 10 / combined / multiple-choice (3 categories) / motor (sorting cards)
PALS-K
Rhyme awareness (individual) / 10 / nonverbal (point) / multiple-choice
4 pictures
Rhyme awareness (group) / nonverbal (circle) / multiple-choice
4 pictures / motor (circle)
group administered
PAT-2
Rhyming / 10 / verbal / ½ forced choice (yes/no) / ½ production
Segmentation / 15 / combined
verbal / ¾ clapping and segmenting orally
Blending / 19 / verbal
Isolation / 15 / verbal
Deletion / 20 / verbal / semantic support / cognitive inhibition
Substitution / 10 / combined / moving blocks/saying words
TOPEL
Blending / 13 / nonverbal
verbal / ½ multiple-choice
½ pictures
semantic support / ½ production
½ no pictures
Elision / 12 / nonverbal
verbal / ½ multiple-choice
pictures
semantic support / cognitive inhibition
TOPA-2
Initial sound matching/oddity / 20 / nonverbal
(circle) / multiple-choice pictures / fine-motor (circle)
Final sound (matching/oddity) / 20 / nonverbal
(circle) / multiple-choice (4 pictures)
fine-motor (circle)
Yopp-Singer / 22 / verbal

Table 4

The Number and Percent of Low and Higher AOA Words in the Assessments Reviewed

Assessment / Age/Grade
Range / Total
words / Low AOA
n (%) / Higher AOA
n (%)
Yopp-Singer / K-1 / 22 / 15 (68.2) / 7 (31.8)
PALS-PreK / Pre K / 50 / 34 (68.0) / 16 (32.0)
TOPA-2 / K / 76 / 43 (56.6) / 33 (43.4)
PALS-K / K / 134 / 74 (55.2) / 60 (44.8)
PAT-2 / 5-8 years / 110 / 59 (53.6) / 61 (55.4)
TOPEL / 3-5 years / 75 / 37 (49.3) / 38 (50.7)