Phonological Assessment Battery - Second Edition (PhAB 2)

Purpose: To assess phonological awareness and identify phonological difficulties children encounter learning to read.

Range: 5-11 years

Administration: Paper, 20 minutes – individual

The Phonological Assessment Battery, 2^nd Edition (PhAB2) offers a comprehensive battery of tests that help assess phonological awareness in children aged 5 -11 years, and helps identify the phonological difficulties some children encounter in learning to read. In turn, this allows appropriate intervention to be provided to help improve underlying literacy skills.

This latest edition has been newly standardised, and in addition to the original subtests, the PhAB2 also includes four new subtests that reflect the latest research in phonological awareness.

PhAB2 includes targeted testing ranges for 5-6 and 7-11 year olds, providing more sensitive tests and a greater understanding of a child’s phonological strengths and weaknesses.

PhAB2 Primary has made revisions to the six subtests contained in the previous version:

• The Alliteration Test – assesses a child’s ability to isolate the initial sounds in single syllable words.
• The Naming Speed Tests – assesses a child’s speed of phonological production. These tests include the Picture Naming Test and the Digit Naming Test.
• The Rhyme Test – assesses a child’s ability to identify the rhyme in single syllable words.
• The Spoonerisms Test – assesses whether a child can segment single syllable words and then synthesize the segments to provide new words or word combinations.
• The Fluency Tests – assesses a child’s retrieval of phonological information from long-term memory.
• The Non-Word Reading Test – assesses a child’s ability to decode letter strings.

PhAB2 Primary also includes four new subtests:

• Blending - combining sounds to make a spoken word
• Phonological Working Memory - a child's ability to use their short term memory for phonological segments
• Phoneme Segmentation - separating spoken words into their constituent phonemes
• Phoneme Deletion - the ability to anticipate how a word would sound if one phoneme is deleted

Why use PhAB2 Primary?

• It enables you to accurately identify areas of difficulty with phonological awareness
• It allows you to assess in detail and plan appropriate interventions
• The new design and illustrations make it even more appealing to children
• It has been newly standardised to reflect the most up-to-date phonological abilities of children in the UK
• It is an ideal follow-up assessment for pupils with low scores in any phonics screening or literacy test.