How to Use a Word Recognition Assessment to Guide Reading Instruction

📘 Yesterday, we talked about how to interpret a phonics assessment—the first step in understanding your students’ reading progress.

👉 Today, we’re taking the next step by exploring word recognition assessments and how they help identify precisely what your learners need next.

🔍 What Is a Word Recognition Assessment?

In the video below, I’ll be demonstrating The San Diego Quick Assessment from Reading Simplified.

This simple yet powerful tool gives you valuable insight into a student’s ability to recognize words by sight — a key component of fluent, confident reading.

💡 Bonus: It’s completely free and available on the Reading Simplified website — definitely worth adding to your toolkit!

📊 What’s Coming Next

✨ Tomorrow: I’ll share how I strategically use this data to select the ideal DIBELS passage — and what to do if a DIBELS passage isn’t the right fit.

💬 I’ll also walk you through how to find and use the UFLI assessments as an alternative when needed.

📅 Monday: We’ll bring it all together! I’ll show you how to take your assessment data and design targeted reading instruction that meets each student’s unique needs — building confidence with every lesson.

❤️ Why This Matters

When you connect assessment data directly to instruction, everything changes.

You begin to see your readers transform — from hesitant decoders into confident, joyful readers who love to learn.

✨ That’s the real magic of intentional, data-driven reading instruction