Letter Knowledge – Naming

Available in Pen & Paper format.

This test assesses the child’s knowledge of upper case and lower case alphabetic letters. It is an oral response task, requiring the child to say aloud the sound (e.g., /m/) and the name (e.g., /em/) of each letter (e.g., ‘m’ or ‘M’). Upper and lower case letter knowledge are assessed separately, and an accuracy score is tallied for each. The test is not timed and should be administered individually.

Age range

This test is suitable for children in Reception Year and Year 1, and may be appropriate for older children who are experiencing reading and spelling difficulties.  Also, while most preschool children will not have formally learned the alphabet, many know some letters and, even at this stage, letter knowledge can be informative about later literacy outcomes.

Scoring: accuracy

A subscore is tallied for each sub-skill measured (knowledge of letter sounds and letter names, in upper and lower case). The main score of letter knowledge is obtained by summing the number of correct responses across all four subtests.

Norms

Current English norms are available for children in Reception Year and Year 1 (children typically reach mastery by the end of Year 1). Norms are provided for total letter sound knowledge (summing across case) and for total letter name knowledge (summing across case), as these are the more predictive indicators of later literacy.  In addition, we provide norms for overall letter knowledge (summing across all four subtests).

Materials for administration

Recording device, Letter Knowledge Task Instructions, Letter Knowledge Task Score Sheet, Letter Knowledge Task Stimuli (to cut out into single-letter cards)

Please ensure you are using the most up-to-date test version:

Test Version: 4

Norm Version: 1

Updated: 23.02.2021

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