Which student needs intervention based on the given description?

Which student needs intervention based on the given description?

• A. A student who blends 5 sounds.
• B. A student who reads grade-level text with ease.
• C. Ella, a 3rd grader who blends up to 3 sounds and segments up to 3 sounds.
• D. A student who cannot blend any sounds.

Answer: (C)

Phonemic awareness and early decoding skills are what this item is testing. By third grade, students should be expanding their ability to blend and segment sounds beyond just a few phonemes, building toward fluent decoding of more complex words. Ella blends up to three sounds and can segment up to three sounds, which indicates a foundational gap in these skills for her grade level. That level of difficulty makes her the student who needs targeted intervention to strengthen sound blending and segmentation, so she can improve word recognition and reading fluency. The other descriptions show stronger or less ambiguous needs: blending five sounds and reading grade-level text with ease reflect stronger mastery, while not being able to blend any sounds signals a more severe deficit that would also require intervention, but the given description points to Ella as the one with insufficient yet identifiable support needs at this time.

Phonemic awareness and early decoding skills are what this item is testing. By third grade, students should be expanding their ability to blend and segment sounds beyond just a few phonemes, building toward fluent decoding of more complex words. Ella blends up to three sounds and can segment up to three sounds, which indicates a foundational gap in these skills for her grade level. That level of difficulty makes her the student who needs targeted intervention to strengthen sound blending and segmentation, so she can improve word recognition and reading fluency.

The other descriptions show stronger or less ambiguous needs: blending five sounds and reading grade-level text with ease reflect stronger mastery, while not being able to blend any sounds signals a more severe deficit that would also require intervention, but the given description points to Ella as the one with insufficient yet identifiable support needs at this time.