Schnolle Test

 Administering the test

1. Sit the learner at a desk or table in a quiet space.
2. Provide a piece of lined paper and get him to put their name and the date at the top.
3. Choose what will be an appropriate point to start the test. (See below for guidance) 
4. Dictate each word in turn, saying the word individually, then putting it into a sentence, and finally repeating it. e.g. time  Can you tell me the time?  time
5. Dictate slowly and clearly. Never hurry the learner and repeat the word as often as needed.
6. Continue until the learner has made at least 5 consecutive errors. The official guidelines are 10 consecutive errors, but this can be unnecessarily off-putting for a learner. You will generally see when a learner has reached their limit.
7. Score as explained in the scoring instructions.

Deciding where to start

If you know that the learner can spell words like ‘sight’, ‘mouth’, etc, then there is no point

starting right at the beginning. You will just waste time and energy. If you are testing a

group of learners together, you may have to, however.

Choose a starting point where you believe the learner will be able to cope with the words.

Dictate the first line of five words. If there were no problems with that line, just continue.

When scoring, you credit all the words before that line.

If there were problems with that line, complete the line and then work backward until they

get a line with no errors. Credit all spellings until that point.

Scoring

An easier way to think of it: Add 5 to the first digit (i.e. the ‘2’ of ‘25’). See example:

Learner scored 25. Add ‘5’ to the first digit = 75 = 7.5

Conversion table to convert tenths of a year into months (i.e. spelling age)

.1 = 1 month .6 = 7 months

.2 = 2 months .7 = 8 months

.3 = 4 months .8 = 10 months

.4 = 5 months .9 = 11 months

.5 = 6 months

Example: 7.5 = Spelling Age of 7 years 6 months

Note: People comment that ‘portmanteau’ is a highly unusual word nowadays. However, if

your learner gets that far, you don’t really need to worry too much about his spelling

anyway! The Schonell test (although old) is generally considered to be a very useful, reliable

test of spelling ability and it has the advantage of not being used in the classroom

nowadays.

Retesting

Strictly speaking, you should not re-test within a year of the previous test if you are using a

standardized, normed test. Six months is an acceptable time delay, but it is usually unwise

to retest within six months. Re-test using the B version of the test and alternate each

subsequent time.

Spelling Age = (no. of correctly spelled words divided by 10) + 5

for example: SA = (25 divided by 10) + 5 = 7.5 years