Saturday, March 10, 2007

Reading Assessment...

Okay! So I think my Dylan needs to be assessed in reading. His brother and sister started reading spontaneously at 3 yo and he, at 9 yo, barely finishes a book. (He has finished maybe 4 his whole life own his own.) So I take him to the local university which has a reading program, pay the $400, and have him evaluated.

I got the results yesterday. He is a grade level behind in silent reading according to the test but it was the last thing they did and after 2 hours he did admit that he was tired of reading and didn't think he did his best. The rest of his scores including oral reading, writing, spelling, and comprehension were mostly 5th grade (2 grade levels ahead!).

The first thing I think when I read the report was that it had a lot of good suggestions for improving his skills and they all were along the same lines as the book I recently read called "Guiding Readers and Writers." The second thought was, gosh!, if he is 2 grades levels ahead in reading then his siblings must be about 6 grade levels ahead! Haley reads almost as well as Dylan and with greater fluency than he does.

I then decided that maybe he doesn't finish books because they are too difficult for him. So I handed him some books that are rated at a 3rd grade level to read rather than letting him pick out books that are harder. I think it will be easy to incorporate the suggestions since I had already started to after reading that book. I do feel better about his skills now.

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