Mrs. Martin's Kindergarten Class

A Parent’s Guide to the Illinois Snapshot of Early Literacy (ISEL)

 

 

The Illinois Snapshot of Early Literacy is a reading performance inventory for early literacy skills. It provides a snapshot of students’ literacy strengths and competencies and assists the classroom teacher in developing lessons that meet each child’s needs.

 

The ISEL is based on scientific reading research and sound classroom practice. It reflects the National Standards for Reading and the Illinois Learning Standards and is linked to the overall goals of the Illinois Reading Initiative.

 

This assessment is administered two times per year, fall and winter. The percentile scores that you see on your child’s ISEL coversheet indicate your child’s performance in relation to a “normed” population of students from across the state of Illinois. The 50th percentile score indicates that a child is making adequate literacy progress. A performance at the 30th percentile or lower indicates that a student may be at risk for making adequate literacy progress.

 

There are ten ISEL snapshots. An administration schedule is listed below. The variety of subtests included in the ISEL provides an opportunity to obtain an overview of the child’s literacy competencies in a relatively short amount of time.

ISEL Snapshots

 

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Alphabet Recognition

Story Listening

Phonemic Awareness

One-to-One Matching

Letter Sounds

 

 

Alphabet Recognition

This snapshot assesses the child’s ability to notice the concept that letters have unique features and specific names.

 

Why is this important? With an inventory of known letters, the child is familiar with certain aspects of the visual details of print associated with emergent reading and writing.

 

How can I help my child? Provide opportunities for your child to identify, match, and or sort upper and lower case magnetic letters. Play games such as Lotto, Concentration and Go Fish with letter flash cards. Read a variety of simple alphabet books. Search for and circle specific letters on a printed page.

 

Story Listening

This snapshot assesses the child’s ability to listen to a story read aloud as well as to respond to questions about the story.

 

Why is this important? Listening to stories is especially important because children develop a sense of story and increase their vocabulary knowledge.

 

How can I help my child? Help your child identify story elements such as characters, setting, and plot while reading. Ask questions about the story before, during, and after reading aloud to your child.

 

Phonemic Awareness

This snapshot assesses the child’s ability to hear initial consonant sounds and to identify words that begin with the same consonant sound.

 

Why is this important? Research acknowledges that phonemic awareness is one of the best predictors of reading success among kindergarten children and for reading performance among first and second grade children.

 

How can I help my child? Play rhyming games with your child. Pronounce words slowly to highlight individual sounds. Read poems, rhymes, songs and chants together. Match and sort pictures and words according to their beginning sounds.

 

One-to-One Match

This snapshot assesses a child’s concept of words as measured by how accurately the child repeats a sentence (after hearing it) while concurrently pointing to each of the words as he repeats that sentence. 

 

Why is this important? Acquiring a concept of word often is considered a prerequisite for developing an initial sight word vocabulary.

 

How can I help my child? Point to the words as you read to your child. Help your child identify the differences between the spaces in a sentence, the letters in a sentence and the words in a sentence.

 

 

 

Letter Sounds

This snapshot is intended to determine the number of letter sounds that the child can orally reproduce correctly.

 

Why is this important? Children who are in control of letter-sound relationships can use this knowledge to decode unknown words in print.

 

How can I help my child? Build three and four letter words with magnetic letters. Read simple alphabet books. Pronounce words slowly and ask your child to identify the first sound of each word.