What assessment would best evaluate a student's phonological awareness?

Selecting the assessment that involves having the student match rhyming words effectively evaluates a student's phonological awareness because it specifically targets their ability to recognize and manipulate sounds in language. Phonological awareness encompasses a range of skills, including the ability to hear and identify sounds in spoken words, such as syllables, onsets, and rhymes.

When students match rhyming words, they demonstrate their awareness of sound similarities and differences, which is a foundational skill for later reading development. This activity requires students to analyze and distinguish sounds, thus providing valuable insight into their phonological skills. Recognizing rhymes is an essential component of phonological awareness, as it lays the groundwork for understanding more complex reading skills, such as decoding and spelling.

Although the other options assess different components of literacy and language skills, they do not directly measure phonological awareness. For instance, spelling focuses on orthographic knowledge, reading aloud assesses fluency and comprehension, and knowledge of sight words pertains more to reading proficiency than to phonological awareness. Therefore, the task of matching rhyming words is the most appropriate choice for evaluating this specific area of literacy development.