In order to administer this type of assessment, I gave a first grader two different DIBELS assessments. The first one was a phonetic blending assessment where the student had to identify different sounds that he heard after I said the whole word. For example, for the word eight the student would have to identify /ai/ /t/. The second one was a phonemic awareness assessment where the student had to read nonsense words and identify the sounds of the word. For example, the student would see the word rev on the paper and have to identify each individual sound or the whole word.
This assessment was a quick and easy assessment to look at a student's phonemic awareness. The scoring for this assessment is also quick and easy. The scoring on each individual test is broken down into whether or not the student says or identifies the correct sounds. For example on the first test on the phonetic blending of sounds, for the word eight /ai/ /t/, there are two possible points, one for each sound /ai/ and /t/. The points for the entire test are totaled and recording on the front of the booklet each week. The front of the booklet is a graph that enables the teacher to chart the student's progress over the course of the testing. The scoring for the second test is similar. The teacher's scoring guide has a list of the words that the student is reading and if the student correctly says the sound then it is crossed out, if the student incorrectly says a sound or omits the sound then it is circled. The number of correct sounds is totaled for the one minute time period and is recorded and graphed on the front of the test booklet.
I think that the test that looks at a student's phonetic blending and chunking skills provides good information about the sound systems the student is using to decode words. I think that when students read nonsense words and try to identify the sounds that the student can get easily confused. They are continuously taught about how to make meaning of what they read and are taught skills for decoding words, using meaning. Therefore, I think it is not as helpful for the student to try and decode, what looks like words to them, but aren't really words. It does give some information as to the systems they are using to decode words but I think it is more beneficial for them to read actual words.