MANUEL GONZALEZ

Introduction

In this article, what I want to have a look at some of the commonly used reading tests in a comprehensive evaluation or assessment for dyslexia. These types of dyslexia tests can be administered face-to-face by a psychologist or a qualified dyslexia assessor or they can be ordered from the Internet and taken in the comfort of your own home.

Reading Tests

Reading tests form an important part of dyslexia tests. They assess a client’s reading on two levels; ability to read words (their decoding skills) and their ability to understand words (their reading comprehension.) Some of these tests are timed and some of the tests are un-timed. The focus of this article is tests that measure a child’s decoding skills. I have selected four of the most frequently used tests; Woodcock Johnson, Grey Oral Reading Test, Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test and the Lindamood Auditory Conceptualisation Test.

Woodcock Johnson Word Attack Subtests

This test is perhaps the most well-known and frequently used reading test. The test is composed of nonsense words. The idea behind this is to test and individual’s decoding and phonic skills. These words would never have been seen before and so they cannot be read from memory. This test is specifically targeted at people with dyslexia. A child will read from a list of increasingly difficult words. Once a child has mispronounce five words consecutively the test will end. There are 26 words in all. The first word is nat and the last word is depnonel!

Grey Oral Reading Test

The grey oral reading tests measures reading fluency. It comprises of five separate measures that to indicate reading skills. The measures are; speed, accuracy fluency comprehension and overall reading ability. Fluency of the reading is calculated by examining the speed and accuracy at which the passage was read. The length of time that it takes to read a passage is measured and the number of mistakes which are made are noted. These two scores are combined to create a fluency measure. After the passages read questions are asked about it. Responses are noted and a comprehension score is recorded. Finally an overall score is given.

Gates-MacGinitie Reading Test

There are two parts of this reading test; vocabulary and comprehension. Both parts of the test can be completed in under an hour. Test has 45 questions centred around the word knowledge. This takes about 20 minutes to administer. The comprehension part of the test has 48 questions and takes about 35 minutes to minister it contains 11 passages of writing which are of different lengths and about different topics. The test is multiple-choice.

Linda Mood Auditory Conceptualisation Test

This test will last about 30 minutes. It will assess an individual’s ability to distinguish and manipulate sounds and it can be great fun. A child represents the sounds they have heard with coloured blocks. A child hears a short word for instance “pa”. They choose two different coloured blocks- one for each sound in the word. They must place the two blocks together but the block for “p” should be before the block for “a”. Words with three sounds will be tested next, for instance “pad”. The child must choose a third block to represent the new sound and then to sequence the blocks in the correct order.