Teachers love these FREE Diagnostic Literacy Assessments because, unlike random sample screeners or inventories, these diagnostic literacy assessments are comprehensive and teachable. For example, what good is a 20-word spelling inventory that indicates a developmental spelling stage? Or a phonics screener that indicates vowel digraph strengths, but diphthong deficits? Or a mechanics assessment that indicates mastery of commas, but not capitalization?
Most teachers I know much prefer assessments that pinpoint specific literacy deficits. Wouldn’t you rather administer a 102-word spelling diagnostic that tells you which students have and have not yet mastered the ending stable syllables: sion, tion, and cian? Wouldn’t you prefer data on each of the six common long /e/ sound-spellings? Wouldn’t it be helpful to know specifically which comma rules do and don’t need to be taught/reviewed? We need these kinds of data to inform instruction. Tier 1 instruction should be robust and rigorous, but we can’t gloss over the fact that many of our students need efficient Tier 2 remediation.
A 2018 meta-analysis by Mathew Hall and Mathew Burns, of 26 experimental or quasi-experimental studies on reading interventions found: “Interventions were more effective if they were targeted to a specific skill (g = 0.65), than as part of a comprehensive intervention program that addressed multiple skills (g = 0.35).” In other words, interventions that targeted student deficits were approximately twice as effective!
Nate Joseph, 2024
Let’s target the specific skills identified as deficits! These FREE assessments are teacher-friendly with audio files, self-correcting Google forms and sheets (or print versions). They include corresponding recording/progress-monitoring matrices to provide the data teachers need to target instruction for grades/levels 3–adult.
Following are the FREE Diagnostic Literacy Assessments I would like to send to your inbox: 5 Phonemic Awareness, Alphabetic Awareness, Vowel Sound Phonics, Consonant Sound Phonics, Spelling (American or Canadian English), Grammar and Usage, Mechanics, 5 Academic Language, Fluency, Heart Words
What’s the catch? I’m a teacher-publisher (Pennington Publisher) and my programs target each and every diagnostically-determined literacy deficit with quality instruction, activities, and/or worksheets. Each of the FREE Diagnostic Literacy Assessment downloadable PDFs include corresponding program links. Plus, I’ll send out more periodic free resources via the Pennington Publishing newsletter. Check out my targeted ELA and reading intervention resources here.
Get the Diagnostic Literacy Assessments FREE Resource:
Get the Free Assessment Toolkit
Diagnostic reading and ELA assessments, each with its recording matrix.
From the store · grades 4–8
Teaching Grammar, Usage and Mechanics
Grade-level lessons, remedial worksheets keyed to the diagnostic assessments, and unit tests. $49.99 per grade, licensed per teacher.
Questions teachers ask
Which grammar assessments are free?
The grammar and usage assessment and the mechanics assessment are both in the free toolkit. Each comes with a recording matrix that shows which conventions a student has and has not mastered, so instruction can be targeted instead of whole-class.
Do I have to buy anything to use the assessments?
No. Every diagnostic assessment on this site is free. Enter your email on the Free Assessment Toolkit page and the diagnostic assessments arrive as downloads, each with its recording matrix.
How are the programs licensed?
Every program is a digital download licensed for one teacher. School and district purchase orders are accepted through the store.
Mark Pennington, M.A. Reading Specialist
Thirty-six years teaching ELA and reading, elementary through community college, plus district reading specialist. He wrote every program on this site.
More about Mark →