Scoring for Hearing and Recording Sounds in Words

Score one point for each sound (phoneme) the child has analyzed and recorded that is
numbered 1 to 37.

Additions and omissions:

If a letter does not have a number underneath it in the scoring standards then it
receives no score (even if a preceding letter has been omitted). Additions do not affect
scoring as long as numbered letters are included.
tody todae
today Score 3 points today Score 4 points

Capital letters:
Capital letters are acceptable substitutions for lower case letters and vice versa.

Substitutions
Given what is being observed in this task it makes sense to accept a response when
the sound analysis has been a useful one, even though the child has used letters, which can
record the sound, but in this particular case the spelling is incorrect. As a general principal,
substitute letters are acceptable if, in English, the sound is sometimes recorded in that
way.

Consonant substitutions, which count as correct, are those like:

“k” and “c”
“s” and “c”
“s” and “z”

skool tace c haz iz

school take see has is

Vowel substitutions, which count as correct, are:

cum bak bas (schwa) caming (schwa)
come bake bus coming

As children try to analyze the sounds in vowels they are likely to substitute unusual analyses
of diphthongs. A substitution, which does not alter the scoring:
todae
today

Children may replace one vowel with a letter that represents a vowel made in a neighboring
area of the mouth. Given that the children are reading English, score the “e” for “y”
substitution as acceptable and the “a” for “e” substitution as unacceptable.
vare
very
Changes in letter order:
Where the child has made a change in letter order take one mark off for that word.
ma (am) 2-1=1 gonig (going) 5-1=4

Reversed letters:
Reversed letters are NOT correct if they could represent a different letter.
dig bog
big dog

Revised 8/07