The teacher in this case incorporates daily, informal observation and monitoring into her phonemic awareness and phonics instruction. This monitoring provides Ms. Canzone with information about her children's strengths, weaknesses, needs, and progress. Such continuous informal assessment allows her to adjust lessons to provide additional practice as needed and to plan for Workshop.

Individual progress with phonemic awareness and phonics activities is likely to vary among children. Therefore, Ms. Canzone observes them closely as she conducts activities, noting differences among them. This information will be helpful in developing instructional plans for individuals and small groups of students.

To make informal observation of phonemic awareness and phonics an easy and regular part of your classroom routine, you might want to do the following:

• Before beginning an activity or lesson, decide which children you want to observe.
• Decide which aspects of students' learning you want to observe.
• Record notes as appropriate. For example, you might answer the following questions:
  • - Are all children "catching on" to the activities?
  • - Are some activities more difficult than others? (For example: Are the oral blending activities more accessible than the segmentation activities? Are some segmentation activities more difficult than others?)
• Over several days, observe each child in the class. It is not necessary to collect information about every child every day.
• Make notes to document differences among children and activities. Use your notes to organize groups of children for Workshop.

Click here to view the Observation Log: Reading.