My daughter, let's call her Twin B, is 8 years old and in third grade. (She has a fraternal twin sister.) We've long suspected that she has issues with reading, partly because she's bright (quantified below) but scrapes along at grade level in reading. A year or two ago, she seemed to be having trouble with sounding out novel words; she could read lots of words as sight words, but new words, names etc., flummoxed her. She seems to have gotten her head around decoding in the last six months, but now she's having difficulties with comprehension. She reads lots of comics and graphic novels, but almost no chapter books. (She did go through a phase of reading lots of Rainbow Magic Fairy books.) She recently said that when trying to read a particular chapter book, she would read two or three pages, then forget what had happened in the story. I've noticed that she can't learn to do something (prepare packaged food, for instance) by silently reading the instructions, but can if I have her read me the instructions out loud. When I mentioned this to her teacher (same teacher this year and last; we have two-year classrooms in our alternative public school), the teacher said that, while she'd done well on the comprehension assessments last year, she had needed to �talk out� the answers to do so. For a few months now, she's been seeing a private reading and writing tutor who seems experienced and perceptive. Her handwriting is dreadful and her spelling is weak. All of this sounds to me like she's got some kind of reading challenge that she's compensating for � adequately, so far, but she could be heading for a crash if we don't figure out what the issue is. If possible, I would like to identify her specific reading challenges in a way that would help the tutor, or someone else, help her more effectively. E.g., are we looking at stealth dyslexia, dysgraphia, CAPD,.....?
We had a neuropsychological and academic evaluation done last year (about 8 months ago, shortly after winter break of 2nd grade).
WISC-V:
Components (scaled score/percentile):
Verbal similarlities 18/99%
Vocabulaty 18/99%
Block Design 12/75%
Visual Puzzles 16/98%
Matrix Reasoning 14/91%
Figure Weights 16/98%
Working memory � digit span 13/84%
Working memory � picture span 15/95%
Processing speed � coding 9/37%
Symbol Search � 12/75%
Scale composites (standard score/percentile)
Verbal Comprehension 146/99%
Visual Spatial 122/93%
Fluid Reasoning 128/97%
Working Memory 122/93%
Processing Speed 103/58%
Full Scale IQ 130/98%
WJ IV:Cog:
Letter-Pattern Matching 105/63%
Pair Cancellation 101/52%
Cognitive Processing Speed 103/58%
Letter-Pattern Matching 105/63%
Number-Pattern Matching 97/43%
Perceptual Speed 100/51%
WJ IV:OL:
Rapid Picture Naming 97/42%
Retrieval Fluency 111/77%
Speed of Lexical Access 102/54%
WJ IV Ach � Reading (Actually, it says IV one place and III another)
Letter-Word Identification 105/62%
Sentence Reading Fluency 116/86%
Passage Comprehension 115/84%
Broad Reading 114/82%
Word Attack 101/53%
Oral Reading Fluency 97/43%
WJ IV Ach � Writing (same comment about III/IV)
Spelling 92/30%
Sentence Writing Fluency 100/51%
Writing Samples 117/59%
Spelling of Sounds 112/78%
I will note that, despite these scores, the assessors felt there was some kind of reading/writing issue. I quote in part �As seen on other word reading measures, [Twin B] relied on whole word recognition, rather than decoding, and made a large number of substitutions, additions, and omissions. While still earning a score within the average range, her actual oral reading was quite inaccurate....While [Twin B]'s strong vocabulary was seen in her writing, her spelling weaknesses precluded her from being able to produce a fluent writing sample (e.g. The boy is rolr skatng on a flat srfis, The momy bride is feeding her baby chik)....As the demands increase and the reading material becomes more academic, [Twin B] will likely struggle to demonstrate her wide fund of knowledge without reading and writing support.�
I appreciate any suggestions any of you may have.
