Assess the child's understanding of print. It may seem simple, but one basic step toward learning how to read is to understand the purpose of reading. In order to do this, children need to understand that people use reading for a variety of activities, from reading a grocery list to reading a menu at a restaurant. As a teacher, you can help your children develop this understanding by asking them when they might need to read something and getting them to identify a variety of scenarios. Another part of this is recognizing that books are made with a certain structure and a reader uses a book in a specific way; in other words, books have a cover and pages, and you read them from start to finish, left to right. Children learn this when you read to them; assess their understanding of this by giving them a picture book and asking them to go through it with you, explaining what they see on the pages. Even though they cannot read the words they should be able to identify the process of reading a book and to correctly turn the pages and examine each one in order.
Evaluate the child's alphabetic awareness. A child cannot read a book until she can read a word; she cannot read a word until she can identify all of the letters in that word. In order to practice this skill, Pre-K students need regular exposure to letters and verbal reminders about the name and sound of that letter. To assess their understanding, use flash cards and ask them to identify the letters. Show them their name and ask them to read you the letters in it. Give them a list of several letters and ask them to find one specific letter from the list. Make the sound of a letter and ask them to point to the letter that makes that sound.
Identify the child's phonological awareness. The phonological awareness involves understanding the sounds of speech, and that the words we say are represented in written form. It also includes understanding the relationships between words and the structure of words. To assess a child's phonological awareness, ask him to clap out the syllables in a word as he says it. Another skill is to have him identify rhyming words.
Assess the child's phonemic awareness. Phonemic awareness is an understanding of the parts of a word and how those parts affect meaning. For instance, if you replace the letter b in big, it might become pig or dig. Changing one phoneme, or part of that word, changes the word entirely. To assess a child on this skill, ask her to identify several words that start with the same letter; show her pictures of a variety of objects and ask her to find the ones that start with the letter b sound. For another task, ask her to change the first letter in a word to make it sound different, such as the big to pig example.
Identify a child's sequencing skills. Much of reading a story is understanding the plot, or the sequence of events in that story. Young children can learn this skill before they learn to read the actual story by themselves. To practice this skill, ask your students to summarize a story after you read it; pay special attention to helping them list the plot events in order. To assess this skill, ask them to do that same process but without any help from you. Another way to do it is to show them a series of pictures and ask them to put the pictures in order. The pictures should demonstrate a process, such as making a sandwich or coloring a picture. If a child learns to put pictures in order during her Pre-K year then she will eventually learn to put stories in order when she begins to read.