EDUCATIONAL EVALUATION REPORT INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL MANILA (Confidential) Student: XXX Date of Evaluation: November 14-15 2011 Evaluated

By: Susan Piper Educational Diagnostician REASON FOR EVALUATION XXX was referred for testing by his teacher, TTT. She had concerns about XXXs literacy skills. She had noticed that his verbal skills were much stronger than his literacy skills. He has difficulty with reading and his spelling is very weak, yet when he expresses himself verbally, he has a well-developed vocabulary and knowledge of topics. It was decided that educational testing would be undertaken to look at XXXs reading, writing and school skills that are literacy based. Testing Behavior On the first day of the assessment, when he was asked to go with the examiner he was very enthusiastic. He engaged in conversation easily and asked,as well as answered questions. When he entered the room, he sat down for testing and listened to the instructions. He began doing what he was asked immediately and when he did not understand something, he sought clarification. When the examiner went to get XXX on the second day, he was ready to go. He was even more enthusiastic and animated in his conversation and shared what he had done the previous night. His focus was good and he worked throughout testing sessions. The results appear to be a good reflection of XXXs ability as well as his achievement levels. Assessments Administered Woodcock Johnson III Tests of Cognitive Ability Brief Form (WJIII) Qualitative Reading Inventory (QRI) Academic Measures of Literacy Skills Writing Sample Results for the WJ-III Tests of Cognitive Ability Brief Form The WJ-III Tests of Cognitive Ability are groups of tests that measure different areas of cognitive processing. The scores reported in the Brief Form are in the areas of Verbal Ability and a general ability (BIA). A summary sheet of the WJ-III Test of Cognitive Ability is attached to this report. The WJ-III has a mean of 100 and a standard deviation of 15. 85-115 falls within the average range for students of this age. Date of Birth: , 2003 Age: 8 years 2 months Grade: 2.4

A WJIII Cognitive Abilities test was administered to establish XXXs ability level in three general areas of cognitive functioning: Verbal Ability, Concept Formation, Speed of Processing. XXX scored on the upper end of the average range in both his Verbal Ability and Concept Formation. In the Verbal Comprehension subtest (Standard score 114), XXX was asked to identify objects to look at basic vocabulary. He did very well on this test andhe had to be tested to the end because he did not reach the cut-off point. The next tasks involved comprehending and formulating ideas using language. He did well identifying synonyms and antonyms. He also was able to correctly solve several analogies after he understood the pattern and sequence. He had to practice a few times in the introduction but moved into the task easily. All of these tests were given verbally; no reading or writing was required. The Concept Formation test required visual perceptual skills and reasoning. XXX received a standard score of 115. It was a new task that XXX would not have seen before. He had to first understand the task and then use that information to solve the problem. Again, he did well on this test and needed to be tested to the end because of not reaching the cut-off limits. He has well developed visual perception and is able to take in the visual clues and work with the input to solve a problem. His processing speed was assessed in the Visual Matching subtest. He had to find matching pairs of numbers in a timed setting. He was slow and methodical and did not miss any. However while still in the average range (Standard score 96), his score shows that processing speed is significantly weaker than his visual and verbal skills. This has been noted in class as it takes him time to produce a minimal amount of work. Qualitative Reading Inventory - QRI The QRI was given to XXX to understand his reading fluency and comprehension level. Because literacy is an issue, a level 1 passage was given to XXX to read. His oral reading was halting and slow. He made several errors while reading that changed the meaning. The passage was called the Mouse in the House. Every time he read the word mouse he read it incorrectly, even though the context of the story should have triggered that it was a mouse he was reading about. Most often he read it mollis. Given the number of errors made, the level one passage is at a frustration level for XXX when he has to use decoding skills. He was then asked to recall as many details as he could about what he had just read. Given the number of errors made when reading, XXX recalled a lot of details. Although he did not understand that it was about a mouse, he was able to glean other main ideas from the passage. When asked questions both explicitly stated and implied understanding of the passage, XXX correctly answered 4/6. Even though his reading accuracy was low, he derived meaning from the passage through context. He also has good recall. His strong verbal ability was employed in these tasks. Because the Level 1 passage was at his frustration level when reading, a primer passage was given. The vocabulary is very controlled and very few words are included that XXX would not have previously encountered. His accuracy and fluency was much better. He only missed two

words that changed the meaning slightly. His fluency was still halting. He had six selfcorrections and repeated words or phrases four times. When asked to recall as many details as he could remember, he was able to remember 16/20, two of which were the main ideas in the passage. On the comprehension questions, XXX answered all of the questions correctly. He had clearly read for the meaning of the passage. XXXs independent reading is at a primer level and his instructional reading level is grade one. Academic Measures of Literacy Skills XXX was asked to do several literacy related tasks that rule out or confirm characteristics of dyslexia. He was first asked to number his paper vertically from 1 to 25. He started with the number 2 and then went back and corrected it. He wrote the rest of the numbers without hesitation. On number 23, the 3 was written backwards, but on 3 and 13 it had the correct orientation. XXX was then asked to write the letters of the sound that the examiner made. For the Y sound he wrote a U and he struggled on the short vowel sounds of i and o. He wrote the two letter blends quickly, however, for the th sound he wrote f. This may be due to articulation issues that he has with certain sounds, including the th. The next task was to write the alphabet using lower case letters. As he was writing, he paused at the letters b, d, k, y and z. He appeared to be visualizing the correct orientation of the letters. He was successful in writing them all correctly except for Z which he wrote backwards. His sequence of the letters was correct. The sequencing of the days of the week were particularly challenging for XXX. He was asked to start with Monday and write the others. He missed Friday and at the end he knew he was short one day. He figured out that it was Friday and put it at the end. He misspelled all of the days of the week, except for Friday and Sunday. For Thursday, he wrote srsday. This error may be tied to his articulation difficulties. Sequencing difficulties is a characteristic of dyslexia. XXX appears to have difficulty with recall of things that should be automatic to him given his strong verbal ability. Difficulty putting the days of the week in order illustrates his struggle to remember things sequentially. In order to understand if XXX has developed a strong sound to symbol relationship for letters and letter combination, he was asked to make the sound that the letters in a given list made. He did well on the single consonant sounds, but he only correctly identified the sound for the short a andi when asked to say the short vowel sounds. He also does not know the sounds that the letter pairs make beyond the letters that are coupled with h: th, sh, wh, ch. Because he does not know the sounds of letter phonemes, he struggles with decoding as the words that he was presented become more complex. The difficulty with decoding of complex words was seen in the next task. He was given graded word lists with no context clues. He correctly decoded 19/20 words in the primer list. In the grade 1 list his accuracy declined to 12/20 and in the grade 2 list, he correctly read 7/20. He

frequently was decoding the words one sound at time, even if there were two vowels together. He could not hold the sounds in his working memory and combine the sounds back together because they did not make sense to him. He did better on the sight word list for the one-syllable sight words. When two syllable sight words were introduced he had more difficulty. He did have a few reversals of the letters while reading the lists. He said de-cas for because. The last word list that he was given consisted of nonsense words. To read these words he had to rely on his phonemic awareness and decoding skills. He was only able to decode 5/27 words correctly. Again reversals were noted in a few words. Drobe was read as drode and shemp was read as shend. Another common error was mixing up the order of letters: dro was door. Sometimes letters were overlooked: plu was read as pew. He does not have in his decoding toolbox an understanding of sounds and rules for breaking words into syllables. That coupled with issues of orientation of letter formation and letter order causes his reading to be largely guess work based on context. Without context, his accuracy declines even more. He was asked to copy a passage that was put in front of him (near point copying) that contained 38 words. It took him 9.5 minutes to write the words. He kept losing his place in the paragraph because he was continually looking back to the words to understand what letters followed. He was not writing in phrases or by word, rather by a few letters at a time. When he wrote the word leaves, he looked back 5 times: l-e-a-ve-s. He was sub-vocalizing the letters to rehearse them, but was not reading the words. Because he was copying by letters or chunks of letter rather than by words, he was slow in his writing. His handwriting is legible, but some of his letter formations are unusual. His words sit on the line and his spacing between letters and words is good. Finally, he was asked to copy three short sentences from the computer monitor(far point copying) and then continue to write an ending. He misspelled the first word; writing ther for there. Once he started to write, he misspelled several words: ate = at, the = thh, over = ovr, house = haws. He was very excited to share his idea for the conclusion but he changed some of his ideas because he did not know how to spell some of the more complicated words he wanted to use. He was not able to write what he wanted to communicate because his spelling skills are so much lower than his verbal expressive skills. Conclusions XXX is a very bright boy that is struggling to develop grade-appropriate skills in reading and writing. Articulation of certain sounds is a problem for him. A speech evaluation should be pursued to address the articulation issues, if it has not already been done. Based on test results, teacher observations and work samples, it appears as though XXX does have dyslexia. (Alternative wording: Based onand work samples, XXX exhibits many of the characteristics of a child with dyslexia.) The definition of dyslexia given by the International Dyslexia Association is: a neurologically-baseddisorder that interferes with the acquisition and processing of language. Symptoms can include difficulty in phonological processing, reading, writing, spelling, handwriting and sometimes in arithmetic. Traditionally people associatedyslexia with a student that reverses letters; this is only one characteristic. For XXX, he

has a lack of phonemic awareness and rules for decoding words, therefore is unable to decode unfamiliar words; both in reading and written work. Reversals occur because of an uncertainty about the letters that he is encountering, including spatial orientation. Difficulty with sequencing and automatic recall of words and symbols also is characteristic of dyslexia. XXXs verbal skills are much stronger than his ability to express himself in writing and his processing speed is significantly weaker than his verbal expression and perceptual reasoning. Because of a lack of automaticity, processing visual input takes longer. He is likely not taking in information as quickly as his mind is working through information and he definitely is not able to write at the level of his verbal expression. To find out more, there are many helpful resources to guide understanding of dyslexia. A useful web site is maintained by the International Dyslexia Association: http://www.interdys.org/FactSheets.htm. A leader in the field of dyslexia, Sally Shaywitz, a doctor at Yale University, has written a laymans book which explains the physiological basis of dyslexia. The books title is called Overcoming Dyslexia. XXX has deficits in many aspects of literacy. He is a child who has dyslexia and needs modifications, accommodations and remediation that address the dyslexia. Much of his school work is impacted by his inability to read and write at grade level.It is important to address this issue while he is still in the process of acquiring literacy skills. RECOMMENDATIONS For Home: Find a tutor who is trained in a multi-sensory program that is based on OrtonGillingham method of learning phonics. One program that can be used is Barton Reading and Spelling. It can be found at: www.bartonreading.com Find high interest books with XXX that have a controlled vocabulary and read aloud together. Or, find chapter books that he likes and read to him, allowing him to track the words with his finger or a ruler so that he is working on his reading fluency. Download audio books that XXX can listen to. Have a copy of the book that he can follow along with. One suggested site is:www.audible.com. Begin XXX on a keyboarding skills program so that he becomes fluent on the keyboard at an early age. He will need to rely on typing and editing his work on the computer as his assignments become more complex. (suggested program is:http://www.mavisbeacon.com/) Explore speech therapy for the articulation issues

For School:

Allow XXX to share his knowledge and understanding of content based subjects by giving him alternatives to paper and pencil tasks in the classroom. When working on writing tasks, he will need to practice writing, but focus on one aspect and assess him on the one goal. (ex. Today, I want you to work on using end punctuation.) Provide accommodations for a student with dyslexia

o Extra time o Access to typing assignments on a computer o Assign a reading partner or allow access to audio versions of reading assignments. Macs have a program embedded that reads texts. o If he is going to be asked to read aloud in class, give him warning so he can practice. Alternatively allow him to volunteer when he feels comfortable. o Reduce copying and writing by providing notes or other aids o Assessment tasks that assess knowledge of the topic verses writing ability (ex. tape the assessment, scribe to write answers that Will has dictated, poster or other visual that Will can create and explain) For XXX: Practice keyboarding skills at home so that it is natural for you to use the computer. Read every day at home for at least 15 minutes. o Find books that you are interested in and read out loud to yourself or your parents. o Have your parents read to you and follow along. Then reread it back to them. It has been a pleasure working with XXX. He has many interests and talents and I wish him the best.

Susan Piper, M. Ed. Educational Diagnostician