This assessment is perfect for any parent who has questions about their child's reading. Whether you're not sure how to proceed with homeschooling, need a second opinion for what the school is saying or just want to know what your child knows - this is the right choice. 

During this 60-minute session, I will work with your child for 30-45 minutes to examine their reading strengths and weaknesses in the areas that you report as needing attention. Then we will spend approximately 15 minutes talking over my observations and recommendations. I will follow up this verbal consultation with a short written summary within 7 days. 

Here's what the assessment can look like: 
For some children, this will be primarily decoding (word-reading) focused. For others who are good at reading words but struggle with understanding the text, the assessment will be primarily comprehension-focused. Still, for others, I might assess both. 

For decoding-focused assessments, I will be using an assessment that is organized from easiest concepts to more difficult concepts. This will allow us to find where learning is breaking down for your child and what phonics concepts they need to work on to in order to improve their reading. I will also be checking your child's phonemic awareness (this is about sounds of language rather than written language). For quite a few students poor phonemic skills lie at the root of reading challenges so this is very important. 

For comprehension-focused assessments, I will be using a variant of what is called the F&P assessment system which is widely used in elementary schools to place students on an A-Z reading level. I will be able to provide you with information on how your child understands the text they are reading and whether they are able to use evidence from the text to back up their thinking. This is a critical skill in reading comprehension. I will also be able to focus on whether your child is able to answer the deeper inferential questions that require putting together multiple pieces of information from a text or putting together information in the text with the information they already know from prior reading or experiences. Fluency (the ability to read with appropriate speed, intonation, and prosody) will also be assessed during the comprehension portion. Fluency, especially the ability to read sentences in meaningful chunks is a key area to improving comprehension and is often neglected during reading assessments and tutoring. 

At the end of the assessment you can expect the following from me: 
- information about whether your child is approximately on grade-level (using the systems that are available to me, which can vary slightly from state to state or a particular school system, but are similar overall)
- For a decoding assessment: Information about what specific phonics elements your child should work on next
- For a comprehension assessment: Whether your child is able to answer factual questions and at what level; whether your child is able to answer inferential questions and at what level; how easily they are able to supply evidence from the text to defend their thinking
- Whether I personally would recommend additional literacy tutoring for your child. Please be aware that I am an experienced special education teacher and literacy specialist. I am not a neurodevelopmental psychologist. As such, I cannot diagnose any disabilities. I can only use what I see a child doing to decide whether this a child that I would work with to improve their reading. Sometimes parents come to me thinking that their child is behind and I tell them they are not. Other times there are actual needs and tutoring might be warranted if that is something you want to move ahead with. 

I am happy to work with you to tutor your child if you want that to be the case and I have availability but that it's not required. The assessment is completely separate from any tutoring services. 

I look forward to helping you find out how your child is doing in reading!