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Dyslexia
Testing of Reading Skills
Reading Performance Skills Tested
- Letter-sound knowledge
- Can identify individual letters
- Produce sounds that appropriately represent letters
- Pronunciation
- Write single letters and letter patterns
- Can spell nonsense words
- Word decoding
- Reading lists of words
- Reading lists of nonsense words
- Reading fluency- reading efficiency and comprehension
- Silently read simple sentences and indicate if they are true or false
- Read an oral passage as quickly as possible
- Read orally a list of single words or nonsense words (timed)
- Spelling (encoding)
- Write single letters and spell words that are dictated
- Choose the correctly spelled word from a group of 4, three of which are misspelled
- Reading Comprehension
- Read a passage silently and answer questions based on the passage (passage may or may not be visible to the student when answering questions)
- Read a passage with a word or phrase missing, provide the missing word(s)
- Silently read three sentences
- One correct and two that contain a silly word that makes the sentence illogical (e.g., “The boy cames [sic] home late”) and circle the sentence that makes sense
Validated Testing Tools
- Letter-sound knowledge
- Woodcock-Johnson IV Tests of Achievement (Word Attack, Spelling of Sounds)
- Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement, 3rd ed. (Letter Naming Facility, Letter Checklist)
- Process Assessment of the Learner, 2nd ed. (Letters)
- Wechsler Individual Achievement Test, 3rd ed. (Naming Letters, Letter-Sound Correspondence)
- Word Decoding
- Woodcock-Johnson IV Tests of Achievement (Letter- Word Identification)
- Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement, 3rd ed. (Letter and Word Naming)
- Wechsler Individual Achievement Test, 3rd ed. (Word Reading)
- Reading Fluency
- Woodcock-Johnson IV Tests of Achievement (Oral Reading, Sentence Reading Fluency)
- Test of Word Reading Efficiency–2 (Sight Word Efficiency, Phonemic Decoding Efficiency)
- Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement, 3rd ed. (Word Recognition Fluency)
- Decoding Fluency
- Silent Reading Fluency
- Process Assessment of the Learner, 2nd ed. (RAN-Words, Morphological Decoding Fluency, Sentence Sense)
- Wechsler Individual Achievement Test, 3rd ed. (Oral Reading Fluency)
- Gray Oral Reading Tests, 5th ed. (Rate, Fluency)
- Spelling
- Woodcock-Johnson IV Tests of Achievement (Spelling)
- Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement, 3rd ed. (Spelling)
- Process Assessment of the Learner, 2nd ed. (Word Choice)
- Wechsler Individual Achievement Test, 3rd ed. (Spelling)
- Reading Comprehension
- Woodcock-Johnson IV Tests of Achievement (Passage Comprehension, Reading Recall, Reading Vocabulary)
- Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement, 3rd ed. (Reading Comprehension)
- Process Assessment of the Learner, 2nd ed. (Does It Fit?, Sentence Sense Accuracy score; Sentence Structure)
- Wechsler Individual Achievement Test, 3rd ed. (Reading Comprehension)
Testing of Cognitive Skills
| Relevant Cognitive Areas | Specific Assessments | Examples of Tasks |
|---|---|---|
| Phonological Awareness | Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing–2 (Elision, Blending Words, Sound Matching, Phoneme Isolation) Woodcock-Johnson IV Tests of Oral Language (Segmentation, Sound Blending) Process Assessment of the Learner, 2nd ed. (Rhyming, Syllables, Phonemes, Rimes) | Repeat a nonword with the omission of a target sound (say stom without saying /t/); blend /m/ /a/ /t/ to form the word mat Identify specific phonemes in words (e.g., first, middle, last sound); break the word sun into its component sounds: /s/ /u/ /n/ |
| Phonological Memory | Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing–2 (Memory for Digits, Nonword Repetition) Woodcock-Johnson IV Tests of Cognitive Abilities (Memory for Words) | Listen to a sequence of numerical digits and then recall the sequence correctly, with increasingly longer sequences being presented Listen to a nonsense word (e.g., keeftane) and then repeat it exactly |
| Orthographic Awareness | Woodcock-Johnson IV Tests of Cognitive Abilities (Letter–Pattern Matching) Test of Orthographic Competence; Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement, 3rd ed. (Orthographic Processing Composite) Process Assessment of the Learner, 2nd Ed. (Receptive Coding, Expressive Coding, Word Choice) | Choose the correct homophone (pair vs. pear) embedded in a sentence Recognize the correct spelling (bote vs. boat); unscramble words |
| Rapid Naming | Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing–2 (Rapid Digit Naming, Rapid Letter Naming, Rapid Color Naming, Rapid Object Naming) Woodcock-Johnson IV Tests of Oral Language (Rapid Picture Naming) | Quickly name aloud a series of familiar items on a page (e.g., letters, numbers, colors or objects) |
| Processing Speed | Woodcock-Johnson IV Tests of Cognitive Abilities (Letter–Pattern Matching, Pair Cancellation) Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children–V (Coding, Symbol Search) | Circle the identical letters or letter groups: bl va dl bl na; scan rows of pictures and circle each instance in which a certain picture is followed by a certain other picture (e.g., each cat followed by a tree). |
| Working Memory | Woodcock-Johnson IV Tests of Oral Language (Retrieval Fluency, Understanding Directions) Woodcock-Johnson IV Tests of Cognitive Ability (Object–Number Sequencing) | Name as many animals as you can in 1 minute Listen to the following sequence: cat, 7, 2, dog. What was the second number? |