Reading is a fundamental part of learning. When a student experiences reading challenges, it can be extremely frustrating and can overshadow other academic strengths. In this article, we will explore how comprehensive reading assessments can help understand reading difficulties. A comprehensive reading evaluation seeks to understand both the “what” and the “why” of reading challenges.
The “What” of Reading Challenges: Decoding, Fluency, and Comprehension
Understanding the “what” of reading challenges entails assessing the three primary areas of reading: decoding accuracy, fluency/speed, and comprehension. Each of these skills is emphasized at various phases of reading development.
- Decoding Accuracy: Laying the Foundation
Early reading instruction focuses on developing phonics skills to allow children to read accurately. Emerging readers who are still focusing on building phonics skills are not expected to read quickly. - Fluency: The Need for Speed
As a student begins to master letter-sound associations, repetitive practice allows for smoother and more efficient reading. Some students are slower to develop fluency. - Comprehension: Reading with UnderstandingInstruction shifts towards reading comprehension in 3rd and 4th grade. The focus moves away from “learning to read” and towards “reading to learn.”
Unveiling the “Why” Underlying Reading Challenges
Once a clearer picture of “what” skills are less-developed becomes clear, the assessment looks “underneath the hood” to understand the underlying causes of reading challenges. These include phonemic awareness, automaticity and retrieval from long-term memory, as well as orthographic memory.
- Phonemic Awareness: The Key to Sound-Symbol Connections
Phonemic awareness involves the ability to accurately perceive and manipulate sounds. If a student struggles to accurately perceive and blend sounds, then the process of matching sounds to letters becomes challenging. - Automaticity: Making Reading Effortless
Another skill area which may contribute to challenges related to decoding is automaticity. Some children demonstrate strong phonemic awareness but may struggle to learn their letter and number names. - Orthographic Memory: Remembering Words
Some students demonstrate particular difficulty recognizing non-phonetic words. This can especially be frustrating for English readers because their English includes many non-phonetic words relative to many other languages which are entirely phonetic.
Reading Comprehension: Where Decoding Meets Receptive Language Skills
Reading comprehension challenges may stem from multiple underlying challenges. Poor decoding skills lead the reading process to be more effortful and tedious, leaving less mental bandwidth to absorb and understand what is read.
If foundational decoding skills are intact, it becomes important to consider whether the way a student processes information may be complicating reading comprehension.
Understanding a student’s unique profile can guide the plan for intervention. Once you meet with a psychologist to have psychoeducational testing done for your child, it will be apparent which challenges your child is struggling with. If decoding challenges are the primary issue, then reading intervention aimed at improving decoding fluency will be the best way to improve comprehension. If attention and executive functioning are found to be the primary deficit, then medication and organizational strategies likely will be the most helpful intervention.
Empowering Parents
With a clearer understanding of the developmental expectations related to reading, parents are able to approach the question of “to test or not to test” in a more effective manner. When interventions do not provide the progress expected, it is important to understand both the “what” and “why” of your child’s individual profile in order to target intervention more effectively.
