My good friend and colleague, Jodie, sent this cartoon to me a few weeks ago. And as we make our way through these last weeks of school assessing our students from every angle, I think it is important that we listen to the message of this cartoon.

I have been completing benchmark assessments using the Fountas and Pinnell Kit. Many of our students, especially those diagnosed with dyslexia, often find this test downright hard and I am not sure it is providing the most accurate reading level of these kids.

First of all, for many it takes so much energy to decode and process the words that they seldom if ever, reach level 3 for fluency. And, although they know the word “for” in everyday reading, on test day it comes out “from.”

Then, after reading the entire story, which may take fifteen or more minutes, we are required to have a “conversation” about the story to check on the child’s comprehension, with little or no prompting allowed. Now, understand that several of my students have memory challenges as part of their cognitive profile.

When I consider the information that I have recorded on the test protocol, I often find that the many miscues they have made are insignificant as far as gleaning meaning from the text. But, when I count them up there are 17 errors and more than 15 means the level is too hard!

Children with dyslexia tend to read and reread words and phrases several times, as they struggle to make meaning, which of course interferes with the fluency we would expect. And then we get to comprehension….when asked what they learned from the story (or whatever the leading question is) there is often silence. However, with prompts to jog their memories, they are spot on!

Sadly, for some of our children diagnosed with a specific learning disability in reading and writing, they may only progress one or two levels in an entire year! Before long we have students in grade 3 reading at an early grade one level.

Providing more reading practice at low levels, is not enough. It is like going to the gym for a workout. If the workout is too weak, we do not get the best result. We regularly need to push ourselves in order to get stronger.

The key is to choose the right reading materials just on the edge of hard. This not only allows them to decode new words and build the new pathways in the brain to store the word and its meaning, but also build self-confidence as they are able to see themselves becoming true readers.

Could we make some changes to the test that would be more applicable to these “different” geniuses? 

How about taking into consideration the number of insignificant miscues they make, and consider just not counting them! How about overlooking the fluency scale for those with processing speed challenges! How about providing minimal prompts that will help them remember the information they have read! Let’s keep our readers moving to a level where the vocabulary and the information they will be exposed to is grade appropriate, and much more engaging!