At Empowered Readers, our Orton-Gillingham instructors are trained to recognize the profile of strengths and weaknesses in students with dyslexia or other reading challenges. However, they are unable to medically diagnose dyslexia or other disabilities unless they have obtained certification in another field (such as neuropsychology). As a result, this is where informal assessments come in to fill the gap and meet our students’ needs.
Our students deserve highly tailored coaching focused on creating empowering them, so they achieve critical age-appropriate reading and writing skills. In order to do so, we conduct informal assessments in seven key assessment areas:
- Phonemic awareness: We test their ability to manipulate sounds
- Decoding: We test their ability to break words apart
- Sight word knowledge: We test if they can recognize high-frequency words automatically
- Reading fluency: We measure their speed and tone when reading
- Reading comprehension: We test their understanding of the meaning behind what is being read
- Spelling skills: We test ‘sounding out’ and their knowledge of common spelling patterns rules
- Written expression:We measure them being able to express one’s thoughts coherently and in a correct structure on paper).
We use these informal assessments to create a highly personalized profile of a student’s strength and weaknesses. Thus, we are able to develop instruction that best meets a student’s needs.
Learn more about our assessment services: contact us now!