Chapter Title: Observing for Evidence of Sound, Letter, and Word

Knowledge
Presenters: Silvia Macias, Graciela Montes, Amanda Smith, and Sofa Bravo
Description of presentation (brief summary of the chapter plus activities
used from appendixes and/or Already Ready book). Please, include at least
one photo/video.
Assessing our students sound, letter, and word knowledge can give teachers
a lot of information about their growing stages of literacy development and
the differences in our students. In Nursery classrooms it has being more
appropriate to simply observe students, looking for proof of their growing
awareness. In Pre-Kinder and Kinder classrooms, assessments can be more
formal. This chapter provides 3 charts with evidence of literacy awareness,
broken into the categories of sound, letter, and word. Each chart provides
questions of what a child can do. For example, Can the child find letters in
his name? is evidence of letter learning. It is important that teachers
observe their students closely and discover where each individual child his,
before introducing new concepts.
Evidence (minutes in a bullet form from the feedback meeting where each
teacher shared how they applied the chapters content.)
PK-K8
o The children paired magnetic letters (upper cases) with corresponding
pictures, typed their names into the computer.
EVIDENCE OF SOUND AWARENESS:
o Words are said slowly when children need the help during writing
sessions.
o Initial, middle, and ending sounds were identified through the use of
games
PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS:
o Chipper Chat game using a variety of skills: initial, middle, and ending
sounds, counting words in a sentence, syllable counting, letter
counting in short words, and identifying blended sounds.
EVIDENCE OF LETTER LEARNING:
o Circle the letters of their name in the alphabet.
o Matching magnetic letter with corresponding picture.
o Matching upper and lower cases.
EVIDENCE OF WORD UNDERSTANDING:
o Recognize their name among the helper list.
o Choral read high frequency words during circle time.

o Recognize the needed high frequency word from a list when writing in
their journal.
PK9
EVIDENCE OF LETTER LEARNING:
o Children will point out that a text has their first letter or that of a
classmate.
o They will use a string of random letters to represent an idea when
writing by themselves.
EVIDENCE OF WORD UNDERSTANDING:
o The students can point out the difference between a letter and a Word
when we look at a book title (count word.)
o Many of our students have learned sight words: I, love, and the.
EVIDENCE OF SOUND AWARENESS:
o Children are able to identify the first and last sound in their classmates
names.
o Children reference alphabet sounds when writing simple words (D like
dog or A for apple.)
PK-K11
o Basket of magnetic letters: Optional: use alphabet strip and put letters
in order.
o Ask: Where is the letter? or Where is the sound?.
o Use vocabulary magnetics to match sound to letter.