Woodcock Johnson III

Yup, we have to give the same tests from year-to-year in order to provide solid growth evidence (or lack thereof).

The WJIII can test for word attack. They can give Word Attack and Letter-Word ID subtests and come up with a basic skills cluster. There is a fluency subtest that can be administered annually.

You can also do the same thing by getting leveled books and taping her while using a stop watch.

What have they been doing for her fluency issues?

What subtest is this in WJIII?

I don’t believe they are helping with fluency this year they did read naturally program last year but not this year.My reading tutor is going to do synchronized reading with my daughter which might help.Since my child is not really fluent I want to find out what skills she is lacking so we can improve those.

Barbara, it’s called Reading Fluency.

Janis

I don’t think there is such a subtest in WJIII. I’m asking because we use Gray Oral to test reading fluency because WJIII doesn’t have that subtest. Are we missing something?

There is a timed reading fluency score on the WJIII that the child reads simple sentences as fast as they can. My DD who has problems with larger multisyllabic words achieved a SS of 100 on this subtest with a Perentile Rank of 50%….which ironically placed her at grade level…

However, she scored a very low 9% ranking on Letter-word ID which means she has problems decoding multisyllabic words…The reading fluency subtest of the WJIII is not reliable in my opinion, it doesn’t progress in difficulty of material between syllable structures and grade levels.

I checked the website of Woodcock Johnson. What we have is WJ R not the newest edition! No wonder there’s no reading fluency subtest. We really should get the new one.

nt

i have a similar question.

what tests would you all recommend for a primer reader in mid first grade to measure and monitor progress?school has suggested the LAC test for p.a. (however this is not a relative waekness for this child) and the Wilson word reading test and Wilson endoding test. how often can these tests be administered? what other tests can be done to track progress? and how often do you recommend testing as part of a reading program? is once a month too often? not enough?

this will be part of an iep for this child and i want to make sure objective test measures are in place before beginning.
thanks!

I’ll address one question from your post. I request testing once per year so that IEP progess can be substatiated. Once a month is absolutely too much.

Janis

thanks janis.

so what would you do in the meantime to measure progress? are there test measures within the programs you use?

i am just concerned about waiting a whole year to see objective test measurement results. what has happened, and i think what happens with many dyslexic children in public school special education, is that they are not tested (even once per year) on any objective test measures; parents, and child, are told they are making progress in reading; but they are still way behind two years later.

i do not know appropriate tests, so i am just questioning what might be good on an iep to really track progress.

thanks

Annise,

As a parent and a teacher, I know how much time formal testing takes. I also know that real improvement takes time in skills like reading decoding or comprehension. On the other had, it would not be acceptable to me for my child to have a standardized achievement test every three years. So my feeling is that I want the teacher to have plenty of time to teach, so I will not require standardized testing more than once a year. But once a year, I will not accept teacher made tests or teacher observation as the measure of progress. I require a standardized test. And really, school is only 9 months a year, so testing once a school year is really based on 9 months of instruction. I feel this is reasonable.

As far as my students go, I work on reading skills all the time. There is much to learn. Real improvement in an area like reading comprehension takes time. I can tell from how the child is doing working with me if they are having success or not and can report that as progress. But the standardized test is the instrument that can prove it. And those tests just shouldn’t be given often or it will invalidate the test results. Some schools only do the standardized tests once every three years. I am fortunate that my child’s school has agreed to my request for once a year. I think this is a reasonable request. Then, if no improvement is made in a year, you have very solid ground on which to either force the school into another type of therapy or even ask for private tutoring, etc.

Janis

Annise,

I’ll tell you what I’d like for my own child in first grade. I’d like for her to be given the Woodcock Reading Mastery Test and the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing. Both are standardized and will cover all areas needed to be tested (phonemic awareness, phonics, vocaulary, fluency, and comprehension). I think the CTOPP gives more info than the LAC from what I have read. I guess the value of the Wilson tests would be to see where the child fits within the Wilson program. Phono-Graphix has some tests, also. I will tell you that many schools do not have a wide variety of tests. I may be getting an independent evaluation to get some specific reading testing on my own child.

Janis

The reliability of the subtest is very good. You are questioning its validity–does it measure what the authors intended. It is designed to measure visual processing and it does.

You will see kids who score the inverse of your daughter—low fluency and high word recognition. This is its purpose: processing speed with visual stimuli.

I haven’t compared other fluency measures to it. I think we’ll be working on that next year.

I think Susan makes a good point. There is more than one reason that an LD child can be slow at reading. There are students who CAN ID words, regardless of length and difficulty, but are slow. This may be the group for whom the subtest gives the best information. Then there is the group of students who have persisting word identification difficulties, due to phonological processing issues. This is the child who may become quite appropriate at reading most words, until he or she comes to the longer, unknown word that will totally stymie progress and cost seconds in decoding time with the frequent result of incorrect decoding Yes, when we measure fluency of passage reading, this is the student who can read easy passages comfortably, yet will get bogged down closer to grade level.

I understand Patti’s concerns. Her daughter does not have the automaticity to handle more difficult passages at an acceptable fluency rate, yet her score on the reading fluency subtest shows average ability.

Thanks for the clarification, Susan.

Well that makes sense, if it is a measurement of visual processing speed as my kiddo is very visual and can process non-verbal patterns, but due to the hearing impairment, language and phonological processing is a problem. Why didn’t they label it Visual reading fluency? But the district personnel do not tell you that this subtest measures their VISUAL processing speed, they allude to the fact that they must be doing fine as they are within the mean in reading fluency. Well isn’t reading lower grade material easier for anyone to read quickly? Why they didn’t think about increasing levels of difficulty so that it measures where they are breaking down?

There is a lot more to reading fluency than just visual processing and that is what I question; the misrepresentation of what this reading fluency subtest measures to families who don’t understand the whole picture….I have seen kids who are slow with reading fluency and who have high word recognition…but what about the fact that this reading fluency subtest doesn’t even assess multi-syllabic words, where the majority of older children who have reading issues struggle??

Thanks for the intellectual stimulation :-)

I agree with you, Patti. This si interesting to me as well since my child just had the WJ-III reading fluency test as well. She scored average, too. No wonder, since she has strong visual skills. These tests are saying things that I do not see when I read with her. She miscalls words all the time, like “is” for “has”, mixes up the “th” and “wh” words, etc.

A SLP I have been in contact with used the TOWRE. Maybe it is a better measure of fluency.

Janis

“But the district personnel do not tell you that this subtest measures their VISUAL processing speed, they allude to the fact that they must be doing fine as they are within the mean in reading fluency.”

You know what, Patti? I honestly think the reason they don’t tell us is that they don’t know. They give a test, look at the numbers, and things are so black and white. I couldn’t understand my child’s good score either. But by pure coincidence in reading responses to your questions, I’ve learned why. I can guarantee you that most people in schools do not have this level of understanding of testing or reading skills.

I had asked on another thread about other tests to measure reading comprehension. Since my district only uses the WJ-III, it was suggested that I ask a reading teacher if she had any reading tests. You know what? I asked, and she said she has NO standardized tests at all. Kids are referred to her by doing poorly on the state test. In other words, there is no diagnostic teaching. Sad, isn’t it?

Janis

Ken C. has probably studied standardized fluency measures more than I. Our district is beginning a sub-committee to study reading fluency measures in order to select what we wish to use to measure various things. My comments above were really off-the-cuff, and I’ve found some interesting information in the WJ-III Technical Manual:

The Reading Fluency subtest does cluster into the Reading *Achievement* portion, rather than into the Cognitive Abilities under Cognitive Efficiency (processing speed). Therefore, the test should increase in text difficulty as the levels increase since it is not designed to test for processing speed.

Now my curiosity is roused.

S

Since I am not familiar with the WJIII like Susan is can anyone tell me if this Reading fluency subtest is done orally or silently? When I did the Nelson Denny Reading test it was done silently and I can “decode” super fast..with half way decent comprehension….The evaluator was surprised at how fast I could read… I told him I was one of the GATE rug rats…who was trained in speed reading in middle school. I devoured books…:-)

Back to Read Naturally…They are introducing their program Reading Fluency Monitor: Assessment Passages and Software..it is a screening and progress monitoring tool that has been designed to measure oral reading fluency.
It can help a teacher decide how to teach the child by determining where they are breaking down.. It can be used to screen for reading problems, provides documentation of progress. Hey…even better it is CHEAP!! $79.00 for a single teacher to use with 75 students…or if your school wants a license it is $595.00 You can read more about it at www.readnaturally.com

According to the manual, the Reading Fluency subtest is read silently with a motor response of circling a correct answer. Authors say that if score is low, compare it to Processing Speed under cognitive to determine if this is causing negative affect. However, they *do not* indicate that this is a visual processing test. They include it in the reading portion and score it there. So, Patti, your original comments still hold about the words not being difficult enough to assess reading levels.

This test takes so long to give and I have other criterion tests for fluency. I don’t need it to qualify kids and so don’t use it. The WJIII, or whatever other testing is done, is long enough without it. Were I doing a grant and needed a normed instrument, I guess I’d have to evaluate them all and decide.

Fluency is comprised of reading rate, accuracy, and prosody. (That is a fancy-shamcy word for tone/inflection and the “stuff” that makes it fun to listen to folks read over someone in a monotone.) Prosody is difficult to measure objectively and so most tests just don’t do it.

Fluency has been overlooked. I’ve always felt it to be the peanut butter of the reading sandwich: It secures the ‘bread’ of word recognition and comprehension firmly together. I just love a good metaphor. :-)

Look below. This subtest firmly anchors in the Reading Achievement battery. Yes, the authors note that poor processing speed could aid or hinder one’s outcome, but it is an achievement test and not a cognitive test (such as processing speed would be).

Never mind.

Patti and Susan,
my son took the WJ III including the fluency subsets (both in Reading and Math actually) and the format for reading is: reading a sentence and choosing a “yes” or “no” answer. The tester in my son’s case had noticed that the pencil and paper task might have lowered his actual score (since the results depends also on motor response speed).

His reading was also assessed by the “Decoding Skill Test” and based on the contextual reading subset of this test his reading level was assessed as 3.3 with reading 76 wpm with 4 errors/100 words. This was in good agreement with the WJ-III assessment, but his reading skills were more or less leveled with word attack, reading comp., letter-word ID and fluency being around 3.3 GE.

Ewa

Well, you guys are a wealth of information. As I read down these posts I’m thinking, Oh geez, my daughter has auditory and visual processing delays and motor planning,(you name it - we got it). It’s a wonder she EVER learned to read!

No wonder we continue to struggle with the fluency - with the link with Visual processing - makes sense. You know, if seems SO easy to understand when you “guys” explain it (maybe I should use the southern “ya’ll”?)

We go to an OT who works with the motor planning and visual processing (it has improved) so guess we are on our way.

Which reminds me - I was going to ask her so I’ll ask ya’ll instead:

Why does she always want to read in very dim light? She will find the dimmest corner and sit down to read there. I can tell it’s a more of a matter of preference and not necessity, b/c she can read in any light, but seems to seek out the darkness. Any thoughts on that one?

Thanks ya’ll for the enlightenment. You make it appear so simple!

Thanks!

Leah-FL,

read “Overcoming Dyslexia in Children, Adolescents, and Adults ” by Dale Jordan.

I really like that book - I am reading teh newest 2002 edition (3rd one) - this is the best I ever read about dyslexia. It will tell you exactly why your daugther prefers dimm light…

The book has some assessment tools- finally I was able to somehow place my son’s problem on a spectrum and I also realized he has overcame many of them already….

Ewa

“My” psych. has pretty much required me to give it so she gets a broad reading score. Since most of the LD kids we test DO score low on this subtest, it often does help us to actually get that low number we need to make a “no-brainer” placement that we don’t have to do handsprings to justify. That is about all the value I can find in the subtest right now.

I measure speed and accuracy with reading probes. Sometimes I select a specific probe or probes, use it or them, then write the IEP to reassess the child’s performance on the SAME probe down the road a few months to a year. The child really does not remember the probe. I did one on a boy I assessed in Sept. and placed in Oct. He had 22 oral reading errors on a 100 word passage at the primer level in Sept., this month he read the same passage with only 2 errors and much greater speed. The students can see this progress when we show it to them. Very reinforcing for both teacher and student. Anyway, indeed, I find little value to the W-J fluency subtest in my program.

The young fellow I mentioned above has been working in Great Leaps. I attribute most of the progress to this very effective and easy to use program.

Ken, if you read this, I am finding that I am getting the best results with students who are extremely sloppy and slow readers. Your program really gets these kiddoes into the mode of reading more carefully, looking carefully at each word, etc. My 1 or two students who are slow, but accurate are not progressing nearly as rapidly in Great Leaps. I think, obviously, that the issues are completely different and I am not certain I am really helping much, with one child in particular.

Any suggestions on this one? A little third grader I have can almost read third grade level, she was about a half year below grade level. The reason we got her qualified is that the psych. used the GORT and her reading speed, which figures into the SS, depressed the score enough to give us the discrepancy. She has made very little progress, if any, since placement in October. Prosody is a problem. No matter how many times she practices a passage, she still reads word x word and never really attains fluency. This appears to effect her abililty to figure out where to place the periods in her own writing. I have placed her in Read Naturally for the fluency training, however I think I need to give this some time before I conclude I am not helping her. I truly suspect visual processing problems.

I don’t care about broad reading score because Missouri splits LD-Reading into comprehension and basic reading skills. I’m going for the two subtest cluster and generally use the WRMT-R.

Like you, I use a criterion ref or CBA for measuring fluency growth.

Susan,

How do you find the WRMT comp correlating with the WJ-III passage comprehension? My child has the 15 point discrepancy on the WJ-III passage comp but would need another test to confirm. I asked for an IEE mainly for reading comp today, and they indicated they’d rather just buy another reading test like the WRMT.

Janis

When I have worked with voice and parkinson’s patients we have them read from Dr. Suess. Yes, I had 60 year old voice patients reading Dr. Suess, to get inflection and prosody in their voice. Other stories that works are the 3 little pigs and goldilocks and the 3 bears. You can’t read Dr. Suess in monotone…it has a definite lyrical quality to it. What about some limericks?

I work with Learning Disable students in a middle school and many of my students prefer difussed or dim lighting. They tell me that the lights are too bright and bother them. Dunn and Dunn as well as others have done work on learning styles and environment preferences.

..

Janis,

That doesn’t mean there isn’t any difference, but I don’t see it on this one subtest between the WRMT-R and the WJ-R or WJIII. Where I do see a difference w/LD kids are on the word meanings subtests—synonyms, antonyms…

Susan

Susan, thanks, that isvery good to know they are comparable. In what way are the vocabulary tests different?

Janis