This article examines the Consortium on Reading Excellence-Phonics Survey (CORE-PS), an informal, inexpensive, and widely disseminated assessment tool that is used to determine primary-grade students' knowledge of and abilities to apply key alphabetic and phonics understandings to decode a mix of real and pseudo-words. Evidence is reported of the extent to which the CORE-PS meets the following psychometric criteria: test retest, internal consistency, and interrater reliability and face, content, construct, consequential, and criterion validity. Findings suggest that the CORE-PS provides an inexpensive, acceptably reliable and valid assessment of primary-grade students' decoding and reading phonics knowledge. Limitations for K-3 students on the alphabetic section of the CORE-PS are noted and discussed and future directions for research with the CORE-PS are presented.