Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional High reading level but low comprehension???

Hi all,

Sorry I haven't been here in a while.

Things have been so much better for DS9 at the new school, however I've realised that while he is no longer refusing to do classwork/avoiding work etc as he was at the old school and before we discovered some visual issues, I feel like we are still missing something.

He reads really well - he has done so since kindergarten, but before we found the visual issues, would often skip or replace one small word for another (and for the, leave out an/a/he etc), and had problems with keeping his place. This has all improved drastically since getting glasses and doing some visual therapy.

However - we still have a reading level of (I could have interpreted this incorrectly, but it seems to be) about a 7th grade level (he is finishing 3rd grade now [we're in South Africa]); BUT his comprehension is really poor (I'm not even sure I can say I feel this is at grade level).

His school runs a "reading bingo" challenge offering various levels - i.e. level one has them read a book with at least 85 pages, a Dr Seuss book, a book of poems, a joke book, etc, and then increases to reading Dahl, Diary of a Wimpy kid type stuff and so on.

The most recent level has one of the items as a book with at least 350 pages. We got him one of the How to train your dragon series books with 400 odd pages and he claimed to have finished it in about 3 days - when pushed a little (he reads fast, but not quite that fast) he admitted that he had skipped all the pages with text only...

Surely this isn't normal?

We suspected dysgraphia last year, but he did the edublox programme (old name was audiblox), and his handwriting improved to match grade level. However, his writing ability is also not what I'd call a match for his reading. By this I mean when he's asked to write a paragraph, he seems to have no idea how to do this, even though he's read many of them, and has been taught how, if the instructions say the paragraph must be at least 5 sentences, he will simply write 5 unrelated sentences.

I do realise that all kids are going to have strengths and weaknesses, however, I don't feel that that is the case here - there is just too big a gap, and to me, if reading is really strong, shouldn't it follow that comprehension and tasks like paragraph writing should be similarly good?

Please, if you have any ideas or can point me in the right direction, I'd really appreciate it!

(Just want to add that while he has done much better at the new school, he has not been skipped/accelerated etc, and the only extension he has really done is the reading bingo. I think the teacher is open to offering and helping with extension, but I think something is keeping him from tackling this. There is definitely a discrepancy between demonstrated potential and performance. We are going to be homeschooling next year and want to skip him in the areas where it will best serve his needs - at the same time we don't want to do this if it's just going to frustrate him due to perhaps 2e issues we don't know about.)

What grade is he in? A nine year old could be anywhere from third grade to fifth grade (and that makes a big difference).

Does the school do any regular achievement testing? If not, I think that you should pursue some academic testing. DD was tested twice at age 9 on two different writing tests. She didn't write more than a few sentences within the time limit and on the second test (the TOWL) it wasn't even enough words to be scored. The test is scored based on her age and at age 9 they would expect several nicely put together sentences (and that would probably only be average).

hi blackcat,

He's in third grade now - at the end of it, our school year finishes in December.

I've spoken to the OT who worked with him on his SPD, but she says the main reason for doing the type of handwriting assesment you're describing would be to get extra time in tests, which wouldn't really be of benefit now as we're going to be homeschooling.

Besides dysgraphia, is there anything you might suspect?

Given SPD (how was this diagnosed?) and a comprehension issue, I'd want a full workup with a reputable neuropsychologist. There are many things that can contribute to comprehension issues, including weak language processing, weak social skills, weak inference skills, and so forth. You want an expert to figure this out for you.

Would you think dyslexia is a possibility, based on what you've seen? Looking at the reading level/ comprehension gap, one possibility might be that he is not decoding in the usual way, but rather is using other strategies and compensatory mechanisms. These can get the job done, and in a kid with high verbal skills and a good memory, can get the job done surprisingly well. However, for most people, by-passing decoding is inefficient and exhausting, using up all the available cognitive resources: there's no automaticity. So it may mean they can read OR they can think about what they're reading, but they struggle to do both at the same time. Can you see if his comprehension is much better when he is read to, vs. than when he reads himself? That might help differentiate a bit whether the block is in his reading or elsewhere.

You mentioned a number of reading issues that have improved since the VT. Do you still see a lot of skipping small words, and replacing big ones with logical but incorrect alternatives? These are common habits for dyslexics too, who seem to be particularly challenged by those small meaningless words, and whenever possible would rather guess a larger one from context/ first letter than attempt to decode. Another check would be spelling, which tends to remain abysmal even in dyslexics who are excellent readers.

I have a 7 year old with Aspergers who scores pretty high overall in reading. For example on the WJ iii Achv. test his broad reading is a 139. But his Passage comprehension was a 112 and Writing samples a 116.
A poster here was able to explain and validate how this can be common occurance with kids on the spectrum.

His Broad math -160 and written language- 145 are DYS levels,but my sons overall higher level language skills are only upper Average/High average. My sons reading fluency is very high though.

An achievement test of some sort would be very helpful for you to get a better understanding of his comprehension.

I also have a 7-year-old with Asperger Syndrome who reads aloud very fluently (and is an amazing speller), but struggles with tests of comprehension. More testing is probably warranted, whether or not that testing might result in accommodations.

With writing, it's not necessarily a handwriting issue, it could also be that he just doesn't know what to write or how to get the words on the paper. The evaluator who assessed DD claimed it is because of impaired executive functioning ability and ADHD.

Thanks so much for all the replies, there's a lot of food for thought here.

The SPD was diagnosed by an OT after doing a SIPT assessment and after we'd filled in a sensory questionnaire. He had quite serious modulation issues, but after about a year of OT with a great therapist, she graduated him as she said he was soaring through every challenge she was setting him and there didnt' seem to be anything problematic that needed more work. He did The Listening Programme for auditory processing while he was in OT.

The mystery here is this:
He decodes very well (phonics are really strong)
He spells very well (will write out spelling words 2-3 times in a week as part of the set homework, he doesn't study for the weekly test, and still gets 95-100%)
His verbal score pulled down the non-verbal - think verbal was 128, non-verbal was 136, overall was 132.
We did suspect a possible expressive language issue - however we are a bilingual family, and this seemed to resolve itself? When he was still in OT he would often just say "Never mind" as it just seemed to be too hard for him to put words together to express himself. He says ummm a lot, and he used to describe a word instead of using the word and then go Oh! YES! when we supplied it for him. Once on the way to OT he said a string of words that made no sense whatsoever, then sighed and gave up. This did improve a lot when I told him I'm happy for him to take a breath and think through what he wants to say, I can wait. This is much better now.
I did wonder about stealth dyslexia - the visual assessment basically resulted in us being told he is working about 3 x harder than he should be - but there has been a definite improvement in terms of losing place, replacing words, skipping etc. It still happens on occasion, but generally when he's not wearing his glasses/is tired.

Blackcat what you say in terms of he just simply doesn't seem to know what to say/write rings true with me. I often feel like he has the vocabulary department of his brain, but the writing/planning part of his brain doesn't seem to be working together with the vocab? I don't know if that makes sense.

My nephew has been tested and has Aspergers. DS did a number of austistic-type stuff when he was younger, but a lot of it seemed sensory related (eye-contact, not liking hugs).

Maisey and ElizebethN - the pattern you describe seems pretty familiar.

My question would then be - did getting the diagnosis help you in terms of helping them? I'm not hunting a diagnosis for diagnosis' sake, I more just want to know if there's something that we can look at and go ok, so we need to really work on building x and y, we have to explicitly teach these skills, he will probably always need help with b and c, type thing. I just want a better picture so that I can help him not be frustrated by - well, life - unnecessarily.

Platypus, we've been told he's a dual processor, so he tends to fiddle a lot while being read to, which makes it hard to know whether he's really listening, but I'd say that when he is listening, the comprehension is about the same as when he reads the story himself?

Thanks again for all the replies, I really appreciate it!

It is possible to have more than one thing going on. There may well be an expressive language issue here.


Often an SPD diagnosis by an OT shows you an incomplete picture. I'd want someone to evaluate for autism spectrum disorders as well as a full range of testing regarding reading comprehension and language fluency.

Not knowing what to say or write can be a language disorder, a social skills disorder, or both. Knowing exactly what skills are missing is vital because it tells you what to work on. I'd say to pursue the testing.