1. MidYIS Reading Test: Assessment of Phonological & Phonic Abilities Bernardine King

2. Summary 1. Dyslexia – what is it? 2. Theoretical rationale behind the test sections. 3. What will the results look like? 4. Limitations of test – what can it be used for?

3. Purpose of Test Part of a new reading test for MidYIS intended to assess various levels of literacy ability: Phonological & phonic skills. Providing information useful in deciding who may need specialist assessment for dyslexia, etc. Vocabulary – picture and sound. Comprehension - component skills, e.g. inference making.

4. Rose Report, June 2009 What is Dyslexia? The review’s working definition: 1. A learning difficulty that primarily affects the skills involved in accurate and fluent word reading and spelling.

5. What is Dyslexia? 2. Characteristic difficulties in: phonological awareness verbal memory verbal processing speed.

6. What is Dyslexia? 3. Occurs across the range of intellectual abilities. 4. A continuum, not a distinct category. 5. No clear cut-off points.

7. Pre-alphabetic Partial alphabetic Full alphabetic Consolidated Increasing alphabetic skill Ehri’s phases of Reading Development eg m in m cDonalds Letter-sound links: exception spellings All links including All regular spellings Some = ‘ partial’ None, iconic reading:

8. Letter confusions, b/d, p/q/ Nonword reading problems: ‘pib’‘dalop’ Salient letters of words attended to, eg 1 st & last letters Partial Alphabetic Phase

9. Rationale Behind the Test Sections Test phonological and phonic skills. Phonology- word sounds. Phonological processing deficit in dyslexia. Phonic problems – relating graphemes (letters & letter groups) to the corresponding sounds (phonemes).

10. Tests of Phonology- Made-up word (nonword) reading, adaptive test. ‘Sounds’ test – identifying sounds in words. Phonological Short Term Memory- forward & backward digit span.

11. Phonics Nonword reading- relating graphemes to phonemes. ‘Sounds’- sounds to letters, as in spelling. Pseudohomophone test- made-up words (pseudowords) that sound like real words, e.g. phocks = fox. Also, test of phonology.

12. Pseudohomophone Test Pseudo = made-up word Homophone = sounds like Requires many visual and auditory skills: e.g. reading ‘phocks’ grapheme separation: ‘ph’ ‘o’ ‘ck’ ‘s’ grapheme-phoneme conversion: ‘ph’> /f/ ‘o’> /o/ ‘ck’ > /k/ ‘s’> /s/ Phoneme blending: /f/ /o/ /k/ /s/ Then..

13. Pseudohomophone Test cont. Match sound package of blended phonemes with items in known sound vocabulary. /f/ + /o/ + /k/ + /s/ = ‘fox’ Added difficulty – word search format. Visual search problems in dyslexia. Choose 5 out of 16 on each of 5 screens.

14. Guessing Nonword reading: 1 in 4 chance. Forced choice multiple choice. ‘Sounds’: 1 in 4 chance. Forced choice multiple choice. Word Search (pseudohomophones): 5 in 16 chance. Can move on without answering.

15. Memory Problems with phonological STM common in dyslexia. Order problems- e.g. telephone numbers. Backward digit span –measure of working memory. Short backward digit span often found in dyslexia.

16. Design of Sub Tests ‘Nonword reading’ and ‘Sounds’ – adaptive, to: match difficulty of items to student ability; Reduce assessment load and time.

17. ‘Lyrebird’ Test – an adaptation of a spoken digit span test for computer. Lack of visual distraction- black screen with fixation spot. Response entered on screen. Max number of digits = 8, to reduce assessment load and time. Design of Sub Tests

18. Non-Verbal Reasoning 22 questions 8 minutes maximum

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22. Uses & Limitations of the Test Audit of phonological abilities of a cohort. Shows strengths & weaknesses. Does not diagnose dyslexia. Cannot identify ‘recovered’ dyslexic readers. Unlikely to identify visual / surface dyslexia. Shows marked phonological / phonic difficulties.