Early Reading Screening Inventory (ERSI) Instructions

RE 3030 SL Smiley

For this assessment, you will be working individually with a kindergartener or low-level first grader. Please ask for the teacher’s help in selecting one child to test. This test is administered individually – one child at a time. You may observe each other (in pairs) as you conduct the test, however; the assessment that you personally give will be your findings report.

Purpose: This individual assessment is designed to take a careful and detailed look at patterns of strength and weakness in an individual child. The test was intentionally created to give you (and the teacher) critical information about a child’s basic knowledge of print. This very detailed diagnostic information can be used to make both general and highly specific adjustments to instruction.

You Will: 1. Prepare your materials 2. Administer the test and mark the score sheets 3. Total the score sheets 4. Interpret and summarize the results 5. Write a description of your results and make suggestions for instruction (paragraph) 6. Download, complete, save, and submit form to TaskStream.

Administering the Test: The following directions are taken from Every Child Reading by Morris & Slavin (2003).

Alphabet Task- You will use the sheet with the upper and lower case letters. Ask the child to tell you the name of the letters presented on the sheet. (You may have her point to the letters to keep track.) Mark the score sheet as the child tells you the letters. For omissions, circle the letter. For an incorrect response, put a slash through the letter and write the child’s response next to it. The score is 0-26 for upper case and 0-26 for lower case. After that, use the “Randomized Alphabet for Dictation” sheet with the upper case letters and ask the child to write the letters as you call them out. (It does not matter if the child writes the letters in upper or lower case.) You may use the sheet with the “star” or the back of the spelling sheet. Watch the child as she writes each letter as she may not have left to right directionality yet. The score for writing the letters is 0-26.

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Concept of Word Task- You will read the “Katie” book together for this task. Turn to page one of the book and say the following:

The sentence down here (pointing to the first printed sentence) says “Katie is...” tells what is happening in the picture. I am going to point to each word as I read; then I want you to point to each word as you read.

You then finger-point read the first page and then ask the child to do the same. You may say something like, “Now it’s your turn.” Then the child attempts to finger-point read the page.

After the child has read, you immediately point to the first target word (the target words are italicized on your score sheet) and ask, “Can you read this word?” Then, point to the next target word and say, “What about this one?” NOTE CAREFULLY the ORDER in which you are to point to the target words. You will find the numbers listed above the target word. For example:

2 1 1. Katie is walking in the rain.

You record the child’s response for each. Continue to follow the same steps for each page of the book. Make sure you are completing the score sheet AS EACH SENTENCE IS COMPLETED. The finger-point reading attempts are scored in an all- or-nothing manner. That is, the child receives credit only if she points to and reads each word in the sentence. In this case, self-corrections are acceptable. The child receives a total score on this task of 0-12. 4 points are possible on finger-point read and 8 points are possible for word identification attempts.

Spelling Task- You begin this by modeling a sound-it-out spelling of the word mat. Follow the dialogue below:

We are going to write the word mat. What letter should I write down first? (Offer praise if you are given the correct response and write the letter down. If the child

gives the wrong letter or fails to respond at all, simply tell the letter and write it down on the paper.) M is the first letter in the word mat. What letter should we write down next? (Complete the same steps for the letters a and t.)

After the spelling sample is completed give the spelling sheet (numbered 1-6) to the child and say:

Now, I’m going to call out more words and I want you to try to write them. For each word, think about what letter comes first, what letter comes next, and so on. Okay, the first word I want you to write is back.

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During the test, make sure to pronounce all of the words clearly, but do not exaggerate or elongate the sounds in the words. There are 0-20 points possible for this test, which are for the number of sounds the child represents in her spellings. The words back, feet, road, and dig all have 3 phonemes. The words step and jump have 4 phonemes.

See the chart below for scoring examples:

Spelling Word 1 point 2 points 3 points 4 points

back B, BN BC, BK, BA, BAC, BAK, N/A BIK BACK

feet F, FA FT, FE, FOT FET, FETE, N/A FEET

step S, C, SO ST, CP, SE, SA STP, SDP, STAP, SDAP, SAP, CEP STEP

jump J, G JP, GP, JO, GU JOP, GOP, JOMP, GUMP, JUP, JMP JUMP

road R, RW RD, RO ROD, ROAD N/A

dig D DG, DE DEG, DIG N/A

Word Recognition Task- Point to each word (one at a time) and ask the child to read the word to you. The first five words on the list are high-frequency sight words and the last five are short vowel, decodable words. Mark them right or wrong. The score for this task will be 0-10 points.

Written Summary: Based on the results, write a paragraph describing relative strengths and weaknesses in the different areas, but pay special attention to (and address) the alphabet knowledge and the phoneme awareness subtests. What kind of instruction (be specific) would help this child continue to grow?

You will need to turn in to me the completed ERSI score sheets (both of them), the student’s alphabet production and spelling sheet, and the TaskStream document.

Below you will find the form for TaskStream. 

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RE 3030 SL Smiley Complete this work sheet, save it, and submit it to TaskStream. Early Reading Screening Inventory (ERSI)

Name of Examiner:______

School: ______

Student’s First Name ______Grade Level Tested: ______

Teacher’s Name: ______

ERSI Task Student Score

Upper Case Alphabet Recognition (+26)

Lower Case Alphabet Recognition (+26)

Alphabet Production (+26)

Concept of Word (+12)

Spelling – Phoneme Awareness (+20)

Word Recognition (+10)

TOTAL SCORE:______

Summary of findings:

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Randomized Alphabet for Dictation (Morris, 2000)

A F K P W Z

B H O J U C

Y L Q M D N

S X I E G R