Elementary Reading Assessments

[Anonymous]

My rising second grader is reading above grade level but writing far below. Last year, he refused to write for a good portion of the year and everyone involved attributed it to behavior. This summer we hired a reading specialist to tutor him and through a variety of assessments learned that his phonetic skills are far far below grade level. Reports cards were all Ps, aside from an I in writing in 1st grade. My question is this, are there any assessments that would have been done in first or second grade that should have picked up on these lagging phonetic skills, or were they just easily masked due to the fact that he was reading so well? Perhaps memorizing words rather than decoding. Thanks.

[Anonymous]

How is his spelling?

[Anonymous]

OP here. Spelling is terrible and now it seems like the writing refusal has to do with that. Knowing he was spelling incorrectly and not wanting to get it wrong. Fine motor skills were assessed and are fine.

[Anonymous]

Dyslexia on any side of the family? Adhd?

[Anonymous]

Both private and public schools wait until a child is 7 yo to do neuropsyche tests or zero in on what’s the issue.
Every conference we press the teacher for her thoughts and in turn she pays more attn to our child. We also ask her for advice on abc and that makes her zoom in too.

[Anonymous]

OP: Yes, ADHD diagnosed at end of kindergarten via a full neuropsych exam to assess reasons for behavior issues. IQ is high, no learning disabilities discovered. Dyslexia was not found but maternal grandfather has it.

[Anonymous]

OP again: Teachers repeatedly told us they had no ideas on cause. This is what I want to understand. What could the school have done to help us get a clear picture of the problem.

[Anonymous]

OP: I noticed a typo in my first post. I’m wondering if there were any assessments that would have been done in K or 1 to clue us into this lagging phonics skills.

[Anonymous]

At that age they are just not really going to look at a strong reader that closely. Good you did your own testing. Submit the results to the school..though based on my experience with MCPS they will not do much until he is missing milestone. Continue with your own tutor..

[Anonymous]

That's tough. Usually kids are encouraged to spell words phonetically in K and 1st grade, in part because it builds phonics skills and helps teachers see if a kid is getting phonics. If the teachers were correcting the kids' spelling, I can see how that would make a failure-averse kid shut down.

If he was reading really well, I think they would assume he is strong with phonics, because in more advanced texts there should be words that a kid hasn't seen before and hasn't had a chance to memorize, and would therefore need to try to sound out. Maybe tests involving reading out loud?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My rising second grader is reading above grade level but writing far below. Last year, he refused to write for a good portion of the year and everyone involved attributed it to behavior. This summer we hired a reading specialist to tutor him and through a variety of assessments learned that his phonetic skills are far far below grade level. Reports cards were all Ps, aside from an I in writing in 1st grade. My question is this, are there any assessments that would have been done in first or second grade that should have picked up on these lagging phonetic skills, or were they just easily masked due to the fact that he was reading so well? Perhaps memorizing words rather than decoding. Thanks.

Writing requires a lot of executive functioning skills like planning, organizing, sequencing, remembering, executing etc I know that occupational therapy can help with this! Ask for the OT at school to evaluate for executive functions in writing and daily life skills.(dressing, multi steps tasks etc) My son had OT from preschool until third grade. He caught up with peers in writing. He was always two grades above in reading but had trouble with writing.