Where Do We Start? A Guide to UFLI Placement
- Christan DePauw
- May 28, 2024
- 4 min read
Updated: Jul 23
⚠️This blog has been recently updated! If you want to read more about the new UFLI Placement Test, click HERE! 🚀
As the new school year approaches, it's crucial to ensure students start in the correct location of the UFLI Scope and Sequence. The previous advice from the University of Florida was to use the CORE Phonics Survey. However, in July, 2025, a new placement test for intervention purposes was released! This guide will walk you through everything you need to know about the UFLI Intervention Placement Test, and how it can help you make informed decisions about getting started with UFLI!
First: Do you NEED to assess your students?
If you are a Kindergarten, 1st grade, or 2nd grade teacher and you plan to start the school year using UFLI, there is no need to assess students for placement in the program. You simply follow the recommended scope and sequence for each grade level, which is found on pages 41-43 in the UFLI Foundations manual.
If you are an intervention teacher or working with small groups, then yes, you need to assess to determine your student’s needs. If you are starting mid-year, it is a good idea to use the UFLI Intervention Placement Test.
UFLI Foundations Intervention Placement Test?
The UFLI Foundations Intervention Placement Test was specifically designed to identify individual student strengths and needs for intervention using the UFLI Foundations program. This means it’s built directly from the UFLI scope and sequence, ensuring a tight alignment between assessment and instruction.
The test includes 210 items across 11 sets of skills, covering everything from short vowels and digraphs to suffixes, prefixes, and other complex vowel patterns. A key feature is that students are asked to read both real words and made-up words, which is fantastic for truly assessing decoding skills without relying on memorized sight words.
Where can I find the placement assessment?
You can download the UFLI Placement Test for Intervention here: https://ufli.education.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/UFLI-Placement-Test-07.25.pdf for free.
How do I administer the assessment?
Administering this test is straightforward and designed to give you clear data for a data-based decision. Here’s a breakdown of how to administer it and interpret the results:
Individual Administration: The test is given to each student individually. But remember, it is only for students that need more than broad, T1 instruction.
Set the Stage: Before showing the student material, tell your student: "I’m going to show you some words to read. Some are real words and some are made-up words that may or may not be tricky to read, but please try your best. Remember that some are made-up words, so do not try to make them sound like real words. Ready?".
Show One Line at a Time: Present the words one line at a time.
Mark Responses: Underline correct responses and circle any errors.
Know When to Stop: This is crucial! If the student misses 3 words in one line, stop the assessment for that student. 🛑 This prevents frustration and tells you where their instructional starting point likely is.
Using the Results
Use the Data Summary & Decision Guidance: After each set of words, there's clear guidance on where to start in the UFLI Foundations program based on the student's score. The test is designed so that 95.3% of students did not pass the set that directly followed the highest set determined to be their starting point, giving you confidence in the placement.
If you are a CORE Phonics Survey user, I will leave the original alignment guidance in the chart below. ⬇️
CORE Phonics Survey Section | UFLI Foundations Scope & Sequence Unit |
Alphabet Skills & Letter Sounds | |
Consonant Sounds | Alphabet Unit: Lessons 1-34 |
Short Vowel Sounds | Alphabet Unit: Lessons 1-34 |
Long Vowel Sounds | VCe Unit: Lessons 54-59 |
Reading and Decoding Skills | |
Short Vowels in CVC Words | Alphabet Review & Longer Words Unit: Lessons 35a-41a* *focus on lessons a (target CVC) |
Consonant Blends with Short Vowels | Alphabet Review & Longer Words Unit: Lessons 35b-41b* *focus on lessons b (target CCVC/CVCC) |
Short Vowels, Digraphs, –tch* Trigraph | Digraphs Unit: Lessons 42-53 *tch trigraph targeted in Lesson 69 |
R-Controlled Vowels | R-Controlled Vowels Unit: Lessons 77-83 |
Long Vowel Spellings | Long Vowel Teams Unit: Lessons 84-88 |
Variant Vowels | Other Vowel Teams Unit: Lessons 89-94 Diphthongs Unit: Lessons 95-97 |
Low Frequency Vowel and Consonant Spellings | UFLI Lessons will vary based on errors Long i (igh): Lesson 87 Silent Letters: Lesson 98 Low Frequency Spellings Unit: Lessons 111-118 |
Multisyllabic Words | UFLI Lessons will vary based on errors Reading Longer Words Unit: Lessons 63-68 -le: Lesson 75 R-Controlled Vowels Review: Lesson 83* Vowel Teams Review 1: Lesson 88* Vowel Teams Review 2: Lesson 92* Vowels Teams & Diphthongs Review: Lesson 97* Affixes Review 1: Lesson 106 *target multisyllabic words in these review lessons |
Let’s get more specific:
I like to use blending lines to narrow down students' phonics skills, strengths, and weaknesses. Students read fluency lines of real and nonsense words as the teacher notes weaknesses. I keep a copy in the students' files to continually monitor progress throughout the year.
If you want to try out the blending lines, type in your info below!
What about Heart Words?
If you're not starting with Unit 1, Lesson 1, then you must determine which heart words to teach from previous units. For example, if the assessment results indicate you need to start on Lesson 43, the beginning of Unit 3: Digraphs, then you should assess students for missing knowledge of the heart words taught in Unit 1 and Unit 2. This is my favorite assessment to use:
What about progress monitoring?
The Quick Phonics Screener is my favorite assessment to monitor progress throughout the year. You can find it for free here: https://www.sfdr-cisd.org/media/gaidhbg0/quick-phonics-screener.pdf
Some schools opt for the Dibels assessment. You can learn more about that here: https://dibels.uoregon.edu/
For general T1 instruction, it is recommended to use the spelling assessment for each lesson on Fridays. If students can spell it, they can very likely read it! This information is used to form small groups for reteaching the following week. All of the directions and dictation words and sentences can be found in the UFLI manual, starting on page 354.
Hope to see you soon!
