interesting scores

Hi Anne,

This is just a shot in the dark, but scores like that could be obtained by a kid who has had some good training in the phonetics, hence the high word attack score, but who also has something else going on which is holding back his reading.

The “something else” that I would put the highest probability on would be a problem with his vision, particularly his binocular vision, i.e., his ability to get both eyes working together when reading.

With such a problem, he might do quite well on a word-by-word test such as the word attack test, because he’s applying inforamtion that he’s learned, while doing poorly on all the other tests because he’s unable to read effectively. With such a problem, he would exhibit signs of carelessness (misreading little words) which would increase in frequency the longer he read, and he would tend to show signs of fatigue as he continued reading.

His low score on the word I.D. test would be due to his general reluctance to read, so he would be unfamiliar with many words on such a test.

Just a thought…..Rod

One reason that this happens with kids is that when they are working on the Letter Word Identification test they are reading real words and they know it. So- when they come to a word they decode the beginning of the word and then substitute a visually similar word for the rest. They tend not to do this on word attack because they know from the get go that these are nonsense words. What I find is that they are a lot more patient about applying their decoding skills to nonsense words- it is kind of like a puzzle that they want to beat. The standard explanation is usually that the decoding skills are coming along but they aren’t yet fluent enough to be applied to real words. Habits like this will lower reading scores in other places too- the Reading Vocabulary test as well as the Passage Comprehension test. This is not a particularly unusual or alarming problem either- depending on how long your son has been in remidiation and what sort of growth you are seeing.

I would offer one caution however that is not related to this directly- grade level scores on any normed test like the WJIII or the WIAT are the least accurate scores that you recieve. The standard scores and percentile ranks are better indicators of blips in skill profiles.

Robin

Thank you, Rod and Robin, for your insight.

I’ve been searching for a web page that can help me read the
test scores.
So far the strangest site I’ve turned up is:
FORAGING DISTANCES OF RADIO-MARKED MARBLED MURRELETS

Does anyone happen to know of a page to explain the WJ-R 3.0 test to
a parent?

Thanks!
Anne

So, what were the other scores?

http://alpha.fdu.edu/psychology/woodcock_index.htm

Helen

He was only given this one test. I had asked for a test to give us
some indication about his reading level.
Now that I have a site to look at I may be able to figure
out where the rest of the scores are ;-)
Right now it is a lot of numbers.
The school psychologist did try and explain the other numbers
but it was a two hour mtg. and numbers have never been my
strong suit…

We are trying something different. He is getting no support right now.
Study Skills was not the class for him. SE LA wasn’t going to work either.
Now we are trying to set up a program where he leaves his music class
every other day and goes to a teacher’s class (during her prep time - bless
her heart) and works on a computer program to boost his reading skills).

At home we work on the Prolexia program, reading one on one with me,
speed drills within word families and a new book we just got Word
Workout.

www.prolexia.com
www.oxtonhouse.com
www.thewordworkshop.com/index.html

Anne

Ak! I went to the Woodcock site. My goodness, a lot of stuff
and I’m flummoxed.

I’ll post a line of stuff from the test and maybe someone can translate
from test-ese to parent-ese.
________________________________

Form A was used to obtain Achievement Scores

(started with Test 22) raw score W age grade RMI SS PR

22. Letter-Word Identification 36 482 8-10 3.6 23/90 82 11
(E) 8-4 2.9 -1SEM 77 6
(D) 9-0 4.4 +1SEM 87 19

Hope that is clear!
Anne

lets try this:

22. Letter-Word Identification

36 This is the raw score- the number of items he answered correctly.

482 This is a w score- it has no worth to you except to know
that it is what the raw score is converted into to
derive the other scores.

8-10 Age Equivalent this is a score derived from the norming
sample and has little bearing on what eight year olds
are asked to do.

3.6 grade equivalent- see age equivalent

23/90 RMI or relative mastery index- he can do 23%of what 90
of his age peers can do in this area.

82 Standard score- this is the important and useful number.
It is a statistically derived number that describes an
individual’s performance relative to age peers. This
one is in the low average range. 90 - 110 is average

11 Percentile rank- same info as standard score experessed in a percentage.A way of ranking an individual relative
to their age peers.

(E) 8-4 2.9 -1SEM 77 6
(D) 9-0 4.4 +1SEM 87 19
These two sets of numbers are instructional ranges based on standard error of measurement- easy at/difficult at. a typical statement would be that he is likely to find work easy at a late secong grade/early third grade level and frustrating at an early fourth grade level.

How did I do? :) I hope this posts the way I wrote it!

Robin

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

Gives me more of a handle on my son’s scores. :-)

Thank goodness for the internet!
Anne

That is more extreme than I typically get, however I have had LD students score high on word attack following 2-3 years of intense remediation. Has your son been in a special education program for 2-3 years or more?

Anitya wrote <>

Since kindergarten! :-)
And in sixth grade now.

He is sloooooooooowly getting better over the years.

I had to laugh when they told me the decoding score. The day before the
IEP we had gone through our pack of flash cards of nonsense, phonetically
correct words and he nailed every one. So I know one source of his phonics
skills….

Anne

.

Just a thought. I know nothing about the testing, scoring, etc. But Look at he Lindamood bell site. www.lindamoodbell.com
Go under spelling, where it talks about symbol imagery. I believe this is a large part of my daughters problem. We are improving on the phonics, but the storage and retrieval of sight words isn’t nearly as good (it is said that it will come…..). Thoughts on that? Connie

I was curious about the specific scores on the specific subtests — percentiles or standard scores being most useful.

YOu’ve got great resources there — any way you can let the kid sleep in and skip an hour of school for the extra work he’s doing ? If you’re looking for comprehension ideas, drop in at my site at www.resourceroom.net

Hello again, Anne,

I’m curious about your son’s reading habits.

Does he like to read?

Can he read a third grade chapter book without making a lot of what I call “careless errors,” such as interchanging “when” with “then,” “there” with “where,” and even “and” and “the,” etc.

Does the carelessness increase the longer he reads?

Does smaller print, or a lot more words on a page throw him off?

Does he start to yawn after a page or two, or show other signs of fatigue?

Does he ever rub his eyes, blink furiously all of a sudden, or indicate any discomfort with how he’s seeing print.

Does he switch to a new page, pick up the pace to normal fluency, then start slowing down and stumbling again, reverting to carelessness?

Is his handwriting a mess, and has it always been slow to improve?

If the answer to a lot of these questions is “yes,” then he probably has a vision problem that has gone unaddressed. If he’s reasonably smart, and you’ve worked with him on phonetics the way it sounds like you have, he could be decoding just fine, but his vision problem could be holding him back from wanting to read full pages of text.

I’m not making this up. I am working with four to six kids like this on a continual basis, graduating them regularly in 10 to 30 hours, but there’s an endless supply of new kids to take their place. Nearly every one of the kids I work with would have had most of the above questions answered in the negative, before they went through vision therapy, and even, for a time, after going through vision therapy.

I don’t do vision therapy….I’m just fortunate enough to have found someone who does it, and does it well, and is willing to refer the kids on for additional reading instruction.

In my somewhat informed opinion, there are a lot more kids out there with binocular vision problems than most education professionals, and most parents, suspect.

Hope this helps….Rod