Assessment
The reading difficulties that students experience may stem from one or several sources. For this reason, it is critical that the source or sources of the difficulty be identified so that appropriate instruction can be designed and implemented. Research suggests that unless intervention occurs during the primary grades, struggling readers have less than a 20% chance of recovering to grade level during their school careers. Based on assessment results, a child may be recommended to basic reading intervention by a member of the clinic's professionally-trained staff.
Assessments are conducted one-on-one, and focus on:
- oral reading accuracy
- oral reading rate
- reading and listening comprehension
- word recognition automaticity, and
- spelling
If indicated, more intensive computer-based assessments can be conducted. These assessments provide measures of both accuracy and speed, focusing specifically on the relationship among:
- letter recognition
- word recognition
- phonological awareness
- phonological decoding
- reading comprehension
- basic math skills, and
- response time