Show the student a book and have him answer questions about it to assess his understanding of concepts of print. Ask him to identify the front of the book, where you should start reading, some upper and lower case letters, an individual word and first and last letters of a word. Read the story aloud, and have him move his finger under the words as you speak them.
Show the student charts of upper case and lower case letters, not in alphabetical order. Point to each letter in turn, and ask him what the letter's name is and what sound it makes.
Model rhyming words for the student, including nonsense words. Then give two rhyming words, and ask the student to think of a third rhyming word, or to make one up if he can't think of one.
Check the student's blending skills by pronouncing words for him one phoneme at a time and asking him to identify the word. For example, you say "M - aa - d," and the student says "Mad."
Repeat the exercise in reverse by having students break words into their phonemes. For example, you say "Top," and the student says "T - o - p."
Check the student's sight word literacy by showing her flashcards with the sight words and having her read them. Mark them as correct only if the student can read the word in two seconds or less, without sounding it out.
Test blending in reading by showing the student consonant-vowel-consonant words and having him blend the sounds to read the word. For example, you show him the word "Let," and he reads "lllehhhht."
Assess the student's understanding of the alphabetic principle by asking him to remove the first letter of a word, replace it with another and identify the new word. For example, ask him to remove the letter "s" from "set" and replace it with the letter "p." He should tell you the word is now "pet."