Section I: Identifying Data

Student’s Name: Arnold Strongman Teacher: Vina Phong

Date of Birth: 06/08/2007 Date/s of Testing: 03/22/2019
Grade: 6 Date of Report: 4/01/2019
School: Aloha Middle School Examiner: Vina Phong
Chronological Age at time of Testing (CA): 11 years 9 months and 14 days

Section II: Reason for Referral

Arnold was referred by his teacher for an evaluation due to poor social skills and to determine if
an emotional disability was interfering with his ability to learn. Parents shared he does not
always give a verbal response and can become upset quickly.

Section IV: Behavioral Observations

● Arnold approached the testing situation in a relaxed manner. He shared he never was
pulled for testing before and was unsure if it was a good or negative thing to be tested.
● During testing, the first two reading tasks seemed easy and he answered the questions
quickly. His posture was straight, and he was engaged in the reading task.
● As the reading task progress increased in difficulty Arnold began to fidget. He became
unsure in his answer and appeared anxious for the last two reading task progress.
● At the end of testing, he breathed a sigh of relief when the examiner announced he was
done.

Section V: Tests and Procedures Administered

· Home visit observation
· Interview with child
· Parent interview
· Review of cumulative records and report cards

Section VI: Test Results

Arnold’s Oral Reading Quotient was 112 which indicates he placed at the seventy-ninth
percentile. Arnold did above average in the areas of rate, accuracy, and fluency when compared
to same-aged peers. The rate score was determined by how many seconds it took Arnold to read.
The accuracy score was determined by the number of deviations from print. Fluency score is the
sum of both the rate and accuracy score. Arnold’s standard score for comprehension was 11.
His comprehension subtest performance was average compared to other students his age.
Stories 4 through 6 had the best reading rate performance by Arnold. His reading was
fluent, had good enunciation, steady pacing, and regarded punctuation. The reading was smooth
because he read consistently and made no or few errors for the first two reading passages. He
did not finger point for any of the readings. Stories 9 and 10 were the most challenging for
Arnold because he started word by word reading and his posture became slumped. During
stories 9 and 10 his voice became softer and he didn’t try to enunciate words he didn’t know.
The phrasing or ability to chunk words into meaningful units started to slow down. He started
reading words one by one laboriously in a monotone voice. Toward the last few reading
passages, Arnold proceeded to skip unknown words instead of trying to decode them. This
affected his rate and accuracy score for stories 9 and 10 which resulted in the fluency ceiling.
The ceiling occurs when a fluency score of 2 or lower is obtained in two consecutive trials. For
all reading passages, he read his expression was very neutral and intonation hardly matches the
passage’s interpretation. On a scale of 1 through 4, he scored a 2 for expression.
Arnold’s accuracy score was placed within the seventy-fifth percentile above average.
The most categorized miscue made was in graphic/phonemic similarity. Some examples of this
miscue were reading the word impending as “inpending”. Arnold has some miscues for meaning
similarity or functional similarity because he may have dropped the s in the word “precautions”.
The miscue that occurred the most was omitting words. The examiner thinks this is Arnold’s
personal coping skill for reading is to skip words he is unfamiliar with.
Answering comprehension questions for passages 4 through 8 in a confident clear voice
was a simple task for Arnold. His shoulders turned inwards, and his neck sunk into his chest
after reading passage 9. When he started his answer, he said ended it in a high pitch as if he was
questioning himself. His voice continued to wavier as he answered the next questions. His eyes
started to wander around the room while he answered the questions. Overall Arnold placed in
the sixty-third percentile incomprehension.
It seems reading the grade-level text and answering comprehension questions is not an
issue for Arnold. He can decode, reading fluency, and answer most comprehension questions. If
Arnold is not confident in his answer, he is reluctant to share it. This could be the reason why
his teachers or parents are not sure if he understood directions or their questions.

Test Result Section:

1. GORT 4: Gray Oral Reading Test
2. Table of information by subtest. See below:

Name of Subtest Standard Scores Classification Percentile Rank

Rate 12 High Average 75

Accuracy 12 High Average 75

Fluency 13 High Average 84

Comprehension 11 Average 63
3. The GORT reading subtest presents a series of short reading passages for assessing decoding
and word reading ability. After reading the passage the student will answer five comprehension
questions.

4. On the rate subtest, Arnold’s performance was in the high average range, earning standard
scores of 12. As indicated by his percentile rank of 75, Arnold performed as well or better than
75 percent of all students when compared to the norms for his age.
In the area of accuracy, Arnold’s performance was also in the high average range. He earned
standard scores of 12 placings him in the 75-percentile rank. This indicates he performed as well
or better than 75 percent of all students when compared to the norms for his age.
Fluency scores were obtained by determining the sum of both rate and accuracy. On this fluency
subtest, Arnold placed in the high average range because he earned standard scores of 13. As
indicated by his percentile rank of 84, Arnold performed as well or better than 84 percent of all
students when compared to the norms for his age.
On the comprehension subtest, Arnold's performance was in the average range, earning standard
scores of 11. Placed in the 63 percentile, Arnold's performance as well or better than 63 percent
of all students when compared to the norms for his age.

5. His reading rate was good for passages 4 through 8. He read with little expression but
enounced each word correctly.
An analysis of his errors when reading indicated he would omit endings for passages 4 through
8.
An analysis of his errors showed he omitted 22 different words in passages 9 and 10. If he did
not know the word, he skipped it. He slowly read these passages word by word in a soft voice
level.
When answering comprehension questions, he answered what, how, and why questions. If the
answer was stated in the text, he easily answered those questions.
Passages 9 and 10 had many inference-based questions. Arnold skipped many words he did not
know in these passages and it affected his ability to answer the comprehension questions.

Section VII: Conclusions

1. Arnold Armstrong is eleven years old and is in the 6th grade.
2. His strengths are reading rate, accuracy, and fluency.
3. The weakest subtest was reading comprehension which he scored average in. When reading
he does not exhibit prosody skills such as expression, volume, phrasing, and pace as intended by
the reading passage. He did not attempt to decode unknown words and kept reading.
4. Overall Arnold was well behaved, responded to teachers’ questions and requests. He
appeared to be tired at the end of the test but did not complain anytime during testing.

Section VIII: Recommendations

 It is the professional opinion of this evaluator that Arnold should continue reading a
variety of text. To help with reading expression, Arnold could participate in Reader’s Theater or
read aloud. He should listen to how other people read and be explicitly asked how the reader’s
intonation, pacing, volume, and phrasing changed to reflect the reading passage. The teacher or
parent can model these prosody skills and have him copy afterward.
To help Arnold decode unknown words he should be explicitly taught the BEST strategy.
The first step in BEST is to break apart the words you know. The second step is to examine
what’s left. The third step is to say each word. Lastly, you would try to say the whole word.
This peer-reviewed strategy needs to be taught explicitly and modeled. Then the student should
have multiple opportunities to implement this strategy. Start delivery of instruction with
guidance then wean it off to independent practices. This strategy would help him build cognitive
confidence, and emotional confidence to read and monitor his own understanding. For example,
look at the word revisiting. The first step of BEST requires Arnold to determine what he knows.
He may know the prefix re- and suffix -ing. Then Arnold would have to decode the rest of the
word he doesn’t know. Afterward, he would put the word parts together and say the entire word.
To help Arnold monitor his own reading comprehension he could complete paragraph shrinking.
Ask the student to name the “who” or “what” in the paragraph. Next, have the student identify
the most important thing about “who” or “what”. This activity requires the student to read the
paragraph and summarize the paragraph in ten words or less. If Arnold is unable to shrink the
paragraph, then he does not understand what he is reading. To build-up to the activity of
paragraph shrinking, he should work on comprehension practices such as predicting,
summarizing, retelling and rereading.
According to the examiner, partner reading activity would be beneficial to Arnold
because it provides the opportunity to interact with a classmate. It is critical to keep the passages
short and interesting so the students will not be discouraged. This activity is designed to help
reading fluency, but it could be used to help Arnold build social skills and confidence.
Currently, he reads thirty minutes a day to himself. This is good practice, but it would be more
beneficial if he read aloud to himself or aloud to a partner. Arnold could read the passage aloud
to another student who may be struggling, then that student will reread the passage. To assist
with reading comprehension both students could practice paragraphs shrinking and ask each
other comprehension questions after repeated readings.
Good readers have exposure to a volume and range of text. It is important to provide
motivating texts and contents for reading to engage the student. An effective comprehension
strategy is to teach text structure. The examiner suggests Arnold should learn how to understand
various genres. A successful reader needs to read different texts differently. The teacher could
teach different text structures each quarter and provide Arnold multiple practices to understand
each text structure purpose. Once he understands how each text structure's purpose is different,
he would know what information to seek in the text. Encourage Arnold to read a variety of text,
and practice comprehension strategies and activities.