Assessment Results: Behind the Scenes Action

What happens once your child is tested?

SCORING AND DATA COLLECTION

While many institutions do not second score their evaluations, we do.  Raw scores are checked to insure accuracy and graphs and scores are printed that provide percentile scores, standard scores, and age and grade equivalents.  Our assessment department, while small, documents and records all testing information and collects teacher input and previous evaluations that you may provide.  All pertinent data is collected and put in a folder to be reviewed by our "diagnosis team."

TEAM APPROACH

This team consists of examiners, learning coordinators, and/or directors meeting together to go over all of the data we have collected.  While all of our staff are well-trained and have years of experience, a room full of great minds is going to provide you with more insight into your child than any one individual could. 

ANALYSIS

 An in-depth analysis of your child's test results, background information, previous evaluations, and personal observation comes together and is discussed to determine the precise needs of your child.  In your next meeting with a Langsford representative to go over your child's testing results, you can rest assured that we will be able to explain to you what is going on with your child.

PLAN OF ACTION

Our goal is to provide you relief, for you to walk away understanding your child's learning strengths and weaknesses, and for you to have a clear idea of what your next step should be to help your child perform up to his or her full potential.  We are not satisfied unless we meet or exceed your expectations.

What to Expect: Day of Assessment

Once you've scheduled an assessment at Langsford Center, an intricate process begins taking place behind the scenes.  All of the pieces of this process are specifically designed to insure that when we meet with you, we will have a clear understanding of your child and his or her specific needs.

When you arrive for the assessment, you will be greeted by someone at the front desk, most likely Jenny who is our office manager and scheduler.  You will then be greeted by the examiner assigned to do the testing.  All of our examiners are highly trained and experienced, and your child's examiner will already have reviewed your concerns and have a battery of pre-selected tests ready to administer.

GETTING COMFORTABLE

In order to get reliable scores, it is important that your child feel relaxed and comfortable.  The examiner will be sure to make your child feel welcome and reassured that the testing is not going to be a scary or unpleasant experience.  Before going to the testing room, your child will be given a tour of our facility (you can come along if you like!) so that they will know where the restroom and water fountain are, see where other children are working, and get a glimpse of where they will be working.  They will be told that many of the tests are fun and like games, that all we ask is that they do their best, and that they will be given some breaks where they can return to the waiting area for a snack or a few minutes of play with our toys and puzzles.

Getting Started

Once your child goes to the testing room, the examiner will spend a few more minutes further developing rapport.  She will ask your child questions about how he or she feels about reading and school, what tasks are easy or difficult, and what they would like to be easier.  She will explain that most of the subtests administered are constructed in such a way that they may feel easy at the start but later begin to feel hard.  This is because they are designed to find a point of stability for the student and then pinpoint as precisely as possible the point at which the student's skills become unstable.  Your child will likely feel better knowing that they are not supposed to know all of the answers.

Interactive Evaluation

The examiner will be in the room working interactively with your child throughout the evaluation.  In addition to noting your child's responses, she will also be subtly monitoring your child's emotional behavior and responses.  She will take detailed notes that will help the team have an accurate and all-encompassing perception of your child's abilities.  This is done because we know test scores don't always present the whole picture.  For example, a good or adequate test score starts to look a little different if it is noted that the responses were slow and labored in coming.  

Every 40 minutes or so, or as needed, your child will be offered the opportunity to take a short break.  This provides them a brief respite while also allowing the examiner to confer with one or more of the Learning Coordinators or Directors if she feels the testing battery should be adjusted in any way.  

All Done!

At the end of the evaluation, your child will be thanked for his or her hard work and cooperation.  Younger clients are allowed a trip to our "treasure box," where they can pick out an item to take with them.  They are then accompanied back out front and returned to their parents.  Usually parents are surprised to find that their child actually enjoyed the assessment and feel good about the whole experience.   

Well, that's the part of the evaluation you see.  Next comes a lot of behind the scenes work to determine your child's specific strengths and weaknesses and what is needed to address any difficulties they may be having.  Stay tuned for the next installment to see what happens between the time your child is tested and when you meet with a Langsford representative to go over the test results.

Early Reader Screenings

This is the time of year when many schools are administering Early Reader Screenings. These screenings consist of a few key measurements intended to identify students who may be at risk for reading difficulties. The results of these screenings help to identify which students should be closely monitored and/or would benefit from further, more in-depth, assessment.

Research shows that learning to read is a process that begins long before children enter kindergarten. During the pre-k years, children develop early literacy skills that help them to learn to read in the early years of school. Early literacy screenings and early intervention are the keys to avoiding reading difficulties and the problems that are associated with them.

Three of the most important pre-reading skills your child needs to become a successful reader are:

1) Print awareness (understanding the concepts of words and letters and directionality of text)

2) alphabet knowledge (being able to identify letter shapes and their corresponding names)

3) phonemic awareness (ability to distinguish the individual sounds within a word and to blend and segment those sounds)

A word of caution: screenings are but a small picture of your child's overall learning profile. They may not identify all children who will have difficulty learning to read. However, they have proven to be a good predictor of whether a child is at risk of having reading difficulties and allow parents and teachers to be proactive in addressing these areas.

If you'd like more information on reading and reading assessments, click here.

Defining a "Reading Problem"

"Why Can't I get this?"

Oftentimes there is some confusion about the underlying cause of a student's academic problems. They are often associated with reading, but reading is not a single process and, when we talk about reading, we could be meaning different things. The end goal of reading is, of course, comprehension of the material. But poor reading comprehension is not necessarily the result of a weakness in one's language comprehension skills.

Reading comprehension can only occur when other factors related to the reading process are in place. It is dependent on a student's phonemic awareness skills, knowledge of phonics, word attack skills, and the fluency of their reading being efficient and automatic.

When a reader is struggling or unable to decode words in a text, or he or she is just inefficient in doing so, the result is that they are putting most of their energy into the process of decoding and are not as focused on determining what the text is actually saying.

It is also hard to understand what you are reading when you are not a fluent reader. When your reading is slow and choppy, perhaps lacking in expression, it is more difficult to glean meaning from what you have read.

Parents frequently think or are told by their child's teacher or tutor that they have a comprehension problem, when, in fact, it is actually a problem within the mechanics of their reading. This is related to people erroneously believing that if a student cannot answer questions about what he or she has read that it must be due to a weakness in their basic comprehension skills.

Conversely, some students are perceived to be poor readers because they are unable to answer questions about what they read. In this instance, the false assumption is that if a student is a good reader they will be able to answer questions about a text, and precludes the possibility that the incorrect responses were due to under-developed or inefficient language comprehension strategies.

The confusion around these areas is why we, at Langsford Learning Acceleration Centers, do a comprehensive evaluation of all areas of the reading process to determine the precise needs of any given student. We want the family to have clarity on what underpinnings are not in place and what area or areas need to be addressed for their child to perform optimally academically.

So remember: Reading and reading comprehension are two different, but related, entities. Both areas should be evaluated and considered when looking into whether a student has a "reading problem."

Langsford Learning Acceleration Centers

2520 Bardstown Road

Louisville, Kentucky

(502) 473-7000

We teach reading and learning skills for life. Spread the word!

Successful Sisters

Several months ago, we posted a blog entry about Mallory having some fun in her session. You can read it by clicking here. We received the following update and letter from mom:

Dear Langsford,

As you know, we were very pleased with the results we had when we brought our first daughter, Courtney to the Langsford Center. She came to Langsford in the summer after second grade and you really made a difference. She still needed extra help for a time, but after 5th grade, she needed no help at all. She is in the 8th grade now and doing well.

So of course we came to you when her younger sister, Mallory, began having similar struggles with reading. Mallory has really improved! Like Courtney, she still needs some assistance but her confidence has changed so much and she knows she can do it.

Every teacher Mallory had at Langsford found a way to click with her. Mallory needs time to get used to new situations and once she realized you were going to take her where she is and move through at her own pace, she relaxed. She never complained about going to her sessions.

Both of my children did continue to need assistance after the bulk of work at Langsford but that was no surprise because from the beginning you helped my husband and I understand that this is a process and not something that necessarily gets ‘fixed’ immediately.

All of that was explained so well in the consultation we had to discuss the results of the testing. Certainly there are always concerns about whether or not something will help, but realizing that it is a process made all the difference to us.

We were also fortunate in that our daughter’s teachers also attended the consultations. Mallory’s teacher was so supportive of the additional assistance and worked well with us. She was great. That is priceless to us.

I definitely recommend The Langsford Center, it did wonders for my daughters. So thank you. Twice!

What If Langsford Is Not The Best Fit?

When speaking to parents about their child's learning needs, it's important for us to be clear and honest not only about what Langsford can do, but also what we can't. This means we sometimes speak with a parent whose child needs help in areas outside our particular expertise.

Our Director, Stephen, recently ran into such a situation after having an in-depth conversation with a mom who was referred to us by a previous client. Stephen determined that Langsford was not a match for this child so he gave her other resources that he felt were a much better fit for her child's needs. Later, when Stephen communicated with the past client who made the referral, this is what she wrote:

Dear Stephen,
Langsford is the only place I will refer parents. I suspected his needs are not something to be corrected at Langsford, but as always I had confidence that you would be able to give his mother some options. I know you and your staff do not pretend to have a cure all for every learning issue that affects children. I also know his mom will remember your time and concern...

Reading Can Be Magical At Langsford

Remember Queen Bethany? She had her post test recently.

When we administer our post test, the examiner asks a few questions to get student feedback on how they felt about doing work here at Langsford. So when Jessica asked Bethany how she uses the skills she acquired here at school, this was Bethany's reply---

"I just use the magic. I got magic from here. It makes me lucky."

Start Learning Those Vowel Sounds Early

Leslie, one of Langsford Learning Acceleration Centers' Learning Coordinators is also is in charge of Assessment. She oversees our Examiners and makes sure all the details that go into figuring out the learning processes of each individual client are covered.

Click here to see a video of her granddaughter and after watching the video, see if you agree with our assessment that Leslie's grandbaby is doing a fantastic job with her vowel sounds. Nice job Rose!

Christian Post-Tested Today

Christian recently celebrated his last day of sessions and today he returned for an Assessment of Progress. After this assessment, we prepare a full written report and the parents return for an in-depth consult to discuss the results. This means families leave Langsford with clear information on where their child was upon coming to Langsford, the gains he or she made while here, what they can do at home as well as what can be done at school, and further recommendations for Langsford if applicable.

Christian's mom told us today that she is certainly curious to see what our testing shows but she already sees big changes in him and relayed a story about how Christian has a little light he uses now so he can read in the car!

Christian and his mom on his last day of sessions.

Christian during one of his sessions.