Phoneme Segmentation Fluency (PSF)

What is PSF?

Phoneme Segmentation Fluency (PSF) is a brief, direct measure of phonemic awareness. PSF assesses the student’s fluency in segmenting a spoken word into its component parts or sound segments. A correct sound segment is any different, correct part of the word the student says.

The total score is the number of correct sound segments that the student says in 1 minute. For example, if the assessor says the word fish and the student says /f/ /i/ /sh/, the student has completely and correctly segmented the word into its component sounds and the score is 3 correct sound segments. If the student says /f/ /ish/, the score is 2 correct sound segments.

Partial credit is given for partial segmentation. A student who is developing phonemic awareness may not yet segment words completely into individual sounds but may segment parts of words. For example, a student who says the first sound of the word sun (/s/) receives 1 point. A student who says the onset and rime (/s/ /un/) receives 2 points and a student who completely and correctly segments all of the individual phonemes in the word (/s/ /u/ /n/) receives 3 points.

Note that consonant blends have two or more phonemes that should be produced separately for a student to receive full credit. For example, for the word trap, a student who says /tr/ /a/ /p/ receives partial credit of 3 points, and a student who says /t/ /r/ /a/ /p/ receives the full 4 points. Allowing partial credit in scoring increases the sensitivity of the measure, thus making it possible to measure growth from partial to complete segmentation. Although partial credit is given, the preferred response is for students to completely segment words at the phoneme level by the end of kindergarten.

Overview

Essential Early Literacy and Reading Skill	Phonemic Awareness
Administration Time	1 minute
Administration Schedule	Middle of kindergarten to beginning of first grade
Score	Number of correct sound segments (different, correct parts of the words) the student says in 1 minute
Wait Rule	If the student does not respond within 3 seconds, say the next word.
Discontinue Rule	Zero correct sound segments in the first five words

Scoring Rules and Tips

The student receives 1 point for each different, correct sound segment produced in 1 minute.

1. Mark each correct sound segment a student says. Correct sound segments are different, correct parts of the word. Blended sounds or partially correct segments should be marked exactly as the student said them, and 1 point given per mark. 
   • The student does not receive credit for sound segments that are not said.
   • If the student repeats a sound in adjacent segments, the student receives credit as long as each segment is a different, correct part of the word.
   • The student cannot receive more points for a word than the maximum number of phonemes in the word.
   • Added sounds are disregarded in scoring if they are separated from the other sounds in the word. If a student consistently adds sounds to words, make a note and follow up to determine why this is happening.
   • Schwa sounds (/u/) added to a sound are not counted as errors. If a student consistently adds the schwa sound, make a note.
   • The student receives full credit for elongating sounds, if that is how he/she is being taught to segment sounds in words, and the assessor judges that the student demonstrates awareness of each individual sound in the word.
   • The student receives full credit for elongating sounds, if that is how he/she is being taught to segment sounds in words, and the assessor judges that the student demonstrates awareness of each individual sound in the word.
2.  Mark any incorrect sound segment. Score the entire sound segment as correct or incorrect.
   • The sound segment is judged in its entirety to be correct or incorrect.

For more information please see the Assessment Manual located on the

Acadience® Reading K–6 download page.