Diagnostic Decoding Surveys – Back to School Baseline Assessments

The first week of school is when you finally get to know the people who days before were just names on your class list. You get to match names to faces, and you get to learn about each student’s personality. The first week of school can also be a great time to do baseline reading assessments.

Baseline assessments have two major benefits. First, the results of the assessments help you to plan instruction and differentiate. They let you know which students need support and what sort of support they need. Second, baseline assessments help you set goals for your students and track their growth. When students know their goals, they will be able to see their progress towards those goals and celebrate accomplishments along the way.

The first baseline assessment I want to share with you is the Diagnostic Decoding Survey from Really Great Reading. You can get a complimentary copy of their Beginning Decoding Survey and Advanced Decoding Survey at https://www.reallygreatreading.com/dds. I am not affiliated with Really Great Reading, and I do not get any benefits from sharing this link. I just think it’s a great resource that I have used often with my intervention students!

The decoding survey helps you determine what letter/sound correspondences your students can read. It includes a list of words for the student to read and a recording form for you to track the student’s responses. On the recording form, it has a coding guide to determine what types of decoding your student has mastered and what areas still need work.

This assessment is best used in a one-on-one setting. You could pull students one at a time from a recess or specials class, or you could give this assessment just to the students who you know will require intervention. I have given this assessment as part of after school intervention sessions with just one student at a time.

If you are starting the school year online, there are still ways to have your students take the decoding survey. My school uses Seesaw for online learning, and I have created a Seesaw activity for the beginning decoding survey. (I should disclose that I am a Seesaw Ambassador and receive benefits for promoting Seesaw, so that’s the platform I will use for my online resources).

When students record their reading, that gives you a chance to go through the recordings at your own pace, and it gives you a chance to replay the recording if you did not hear the reading the first time. It also gives you time to differentiate if some students need the beginning survey and some need the advanced.

I hope you will give the Diagnostic Decoding Survey a try with your students to start the year! If you do, please let me know how it goes! You can send me a message on the “Contact Us” page.