CPM: What guidance is there for scoring Sentence and Syllable Awareness sub-measure? If a student claps the right amount of syllables for a word or words in a sentence, but says the wrong number, is the item marked correct or incorrect?
For example: /cow/ /boy/ - claps twice but says "3"
Answer
In the Sentence and Syllable Awareness sub-measure, children are asked to demonstrate knowledge of how words can be broken down into syllables and how sentences are made of words. The purpose of this task is to determine the word parts in a word and words in a sentence. Teachers should use counting methods consistent with their classroom instruction (e.g., clapping, moving blocks, counters, tapping). Students should receive a correct mark if they can accurately identify the appropriate number of syllables or words in a sentence.
Teachers should feel free to adapt the specific procedure to methods that have been used in their classrooms. For instance, another perfectly acceptable way to evaluate this skill is by asking children to “move a block for each part of the word you hear” while some classroom teachers ask children to provide a number to indicate the syllable count.
The purpose of this task is to identify the word parts or words in a sentence, as it is a phonological processing task. Responses should be marked correct if students are able to identify syllables by breaking down the word into word parts or identify the words in a sentence.