Acquiring Literacy in English:
Crosslinguistic, Intralinguistic, and Developmental Factors

Test of Phonological Processing in Spanish (TOPPS)

Authors and Date

David Francis, University of Houston; Maria Carlo, University of Miami.; and Diane August, Dorry Kenyon, Valerie Malabonga, Silvia Caglarcan, and Mohammed Louguit, Center for Applied Linguistics. 2001.

Purpose

The Test of Phonological Processing in Spanish (TOPPS) was developed to assess the components of phonological awareness in native-Spanish-speaking children. The test was developed for the research study Transfer of Reading Skills in Bilingual Children, subproject 2 of Acquiring Literacy in English: Crosslinguistic, Intralinguistic, and Developmental Factors.

Age or Grade of Examinees

The assessment was developed to be used with students from kindergarten age through adult.

Description

The TOPPS consists of 9 subtests.

1. Sound Matching: Children identify the word that has the same first or last sound as the prompt word.

Examples:

Test

Child Sees

Tester Asks

Target

First sound

pictures of piano (prompt), hourglass, field, feet (choices)

¿Qué palabra empieza con el sonido /p/ como piano?
¿hora, suelo, o pies?

pies

Last sound

pictures of honey (prompt),  salt, calendar, bread (choices)

¿Qué palabra termina con el sonido /l/ como miel?
¿sal, mes, o pan?

sal

2. Rapid Letter Naming: Children see a letter and provide its name.

Examples:

Child Sees

Target

o

/o/

t

/te/

u

/u/

 

3. Blending Words

4. Blending Nonwords

In these two subtests, children combine sounds into a real or invented word.

Examples:

Test

Child Sees

Target

Blending words

pié-sas

piezas

Blending nonwords

mo-tár

motar



5. Elision: Children say what is left of a word after dropping certain sounds.

Example:

Researcher Question

Target

“Di tocadiscos. Ahora di tocadiscos sin decir discos.”

toca



6. Memory for Digits: Children repeat a series of numbers.

Examples:

Child Sees

Target

16

dieciséis

72

setenta y dos

836

ochocientos treinta y seis

 

7. Segmenting Words

8. Segmenting Nonwords

In these two subtests, children separate the sounds in a word or a nonword.

Examples:

Test

Child Sees

Target

Segmenting words

mi

m-i

Segmenting nonwords

pa

p-a



9. Nonword Repetition: Children repeat nonwords.

Example:

Child Sees

Target

vípodre

bípodre

 

Administration

The test is individually administered by a trained native Spanish speaker. The assessment takes approximately 40-45 minutes to administer.

Scoring and Interpretation

The test is scored dichotomously, “1” for Correct and “0” for Incorrect.

Reliability and Validity

Rasch analysis yielded a reliability coefficient of .83 (N=100) for the entire test. Validation data are pending.

Source

The TOPPS was developed as the Spanish version of the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (CTOPP), a standardized test of English phonological awareness that was originally developed by Wagner, Torgesen, and Rashotte.

Wagner, R. K., Torgesen, J. K., & Rashotte, C. A. (1999). CTOPP:  Comprehensive test of phonological processing. Austin, TX: Pro-Ed.

Availability

The TOPPS is available from the Center for Applied Linguistics. To request a copy, complete and submit the Application Form for Use of ALE Researcher-developed Assessment Instruments, available in Microsoft Word and Adobe PDF format.

Citation

Researchers using the Test of Phonological Processing in Spanish should cite it as follows:

Francis, D., Carlo, M., August, D., Kenyon, D., Malabonga, V., Caglarcan, S., & Louguit, M. (2001). Test of Phonological Processing in Spanish. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.

Return to the list of researcher-developed assessments.