I help families understand their child’s reading development. Unlike the psychological evaluation process conducted for special education identification, my diagnostic evaluation is practical and specific to reading skills. This diagnostic evaluation is most beneficial for students who are struggling readers, dyslexic, gifted, or in special education. Depending on your child’s age, I will administer a few tests to answer questions such as:

• What is my child’s instructional reading level?
• Is my child able to efficiently attack an unknown word during reading?
• What aspects of decoding, spelling, and phonics are under my child’s control? What aspects of decoding, spelling, and phonics does my child need to learn next?
• Is my child reading fluently compared to other children his/her age?
• How does my child’s comprehension compare to their age peers? What aspects of the comprehension process are in place? What comprehension skills need to be developed?
• Does my child’s writing in response to reading adequately reflect a high level of comprehension?
• Is my child applying effective reading and writing strategies in the content areas, such as science and social studies?
• How is my child’s attitude about reading influencing their progress?

The diagnostic evaluation can be used to inform the instructional focus for your child in all literacy settings: classroom, intervention, tutorial, and informal home interactions. The package will include:

• Quantitative results of your child’s performance on a range of developmentally appropriate literacy tasks
• A descriptive evaluation of your child’s reading strengths and reading needs
• An instructional plan for school and home
• Procedural descriptions of research-validated instructional methods that can be used with your child in school and at home
• See the sample diagnostic evaluations for students in first grade and seventh grade.