The first few weeks of school are full of excitement, new routines, and getting to know each other. One important thing I do during this time is assess where each child is academically. These beginning of the year assessments help me see what my students already know and where they may need extra support.
I have a binder of the “must do” assessments at my teacher table. From letters and sounds to high-frequency words and writing, these assessments provide a quick snapshot of each student’s literacy skills so I can start to make and plan small groups.
If you’d like to take a closer look, you can check out my Beginning of the Year Assessment Pack here.
Letter Name and Letter Sound Assessments
Strong reading skills begin with a solid understanding of the alphabet. These assessments allow students to identify both uppercase and lowercase letters while also demonstrating the sound each letter makes.
The recording pages include multiple date boxes, making it easy to reassess students throughout the year and monitor their growth without printing new forms. These are especially great to keep student intervention folders.
At my school, we have some information that comes from the previous teacher, so I typically do not do a letter name and sound assessment with every student if they are already a fluent reader.
CVC Word Assessments
These CVC word assessments provide a quick way to determine which students are beginning to decode independently and which students may need additional phonics instruction. The results help guide small group lessons and intervention from the very beginning of the year.
High-Frequency Word Assessment
Recognizing high-frequency words automatically helps students become more fluent readers.
This assessment allows you to quickly check students’ knowledge of common sight words so you can identify who is ready to move forward and who may need extra practice. It’s a simple assessment that provides valuable information for reading instruction.
Concepts of Print Assessment
Before students can become successful readers, they need to understand how books and print work.
The Concepts of Print assessment checks foundational skills such as:
- Identifying the front cover and title
- Understanding where to begin reading
- Tracking print from left to right and top to bottom
- Recognizing spaces between words
- Distinguishing individual words in a sentence
- Understanding the role of punctuation
All of these assessments are included in my Beginning of the Year Assessment Pack, making it easy to evaluate your students without pulling materials from multiple resources.
Uppercase and Lowercase Letters and Number Writing
These simple assessments have students write:
- Uppercase letters
- Lowercase letters
- Numbers
The results quickly reveal letter reversals, formation difficulties, missing letters or numbers, or other areas that may need additional instruction.
Short Writing Sample
One of my favorite assessments is the writing sample because it gives me a glimpse into each student’s confidence as a writer.
Students write their first name, last name, and the date. Then, they respond to a simple prompt, allowing you to observe much more than handwriting. You can see sentence formation, spacing, capitalization, punctuation, phonetic spelling, and overall writing development.
This writing sample serves as a wonderful baseline to compare against student growth later in the year.
💡 Teacher Tip! Many student-facing assessment pages (excluding assessments that students write on) can be placed in page protectors and used year after year.
Why I Love These Quick Beginning of the Year Assessments
Having this information early allows me to target instruction where it’s needed most and celebrate growth throughout the year.
Now, I have meaningful data that helps me make early instructional decisions with confidence. Best of all, these assessments are quick to administer, easy to organize, and can be used again throughout the year to monitor progress.
If you’re looking for a simple way to learn exactly where your students are starting the year, this assessment pack has everything you need to build a strong foundation for successful reading and writing instruction.
➡️ Ready to confidently assess your students this school year? Take a look at my Beginning of the Year Assessment Pack to see everything that’s included and start gathering meaningful data from day one.
Happy Teaching!
Jennifer ~ Practical Primary Teacher 🍎🍏
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