S5 E3 - Quick Phonics Assessment to Start the Year

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In this episode of the Structured Literacy podcast, Jocelyn provides a practical whole-class method for efficiently assessing phonics knowledge at the start of the school year without spending weeks on individual testing. Using whiteboards and working in manageable chunks of five graphemes per day, she demonstrates how to conduct "cold" recall tasks where students write graphemes when hearing phonemes, followed by recognition checks for struggling students, emphasising the importance of testing what's truly consolidated in long-term memory rather than recently introduced content. 

The approach includes practical tips such as taking videos and photos to document results, maintaining quick pacing to prevent copying, and beginning immediate consolidation of missed content rather than waiting for assessment completion, with the entire process taking approximately two weeks while providing crucial data to inform targeted phonics instruction based on actual student needs rather than program pacing guides. 

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