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Effective Strategy for Phonemic Awareness Practice and Quick Whole Class Assessment

 "Classroom strategies should not only support students but also help teachers efficiently measure both student strengths and needs at the same time."

Here is a glimpse at an effective strategy for supporting phonemic awareness in primary grade classrooms while also giving the teacher a quick and accurate measure of student needs and strengths. A few suggestions to consider:

  • Give students time to initially practice using the magnetic wands to accurately pinpoint the sounds in the Elkonin boxes.
  • You may want to only focus on one sound location, but I have found it effective to bounce around the initial, medial, and final sounds to ensure you measure the broad scope of depth of knowledge and understanding.
  • Be sure to have a notepad to record both general patterns and trends you observe during the activity and also track individual student progress to help you plan for small group instruction.
  • You should not spend more than 5-7 minutes on the activity. You will find that the students will be engaged and want to continue beyond the short activity. But that’s a great thing, right?
  • And be nice about my narration! This is new to me! 🤷‍♂️



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