Hearing a child read text tells us how kids integrate all reading skills together: phonological awareness, decoding, sight word knowledge, and fluency to get meaning from a story. It also tells us specific strategies your child uses for reading whole text so that they can understand what they’ve read and don’t get fatigued by the reading process.  

Analyzing a child’s writing sample will give you more information about your child as a learner than any assessment on the market today. Breaking down your own child’s writing process will help you to see exactly what skills your child has not only in spelling and writing but also in reading. Kids learn to decode (sound out) before learning to encode (spell). This will tell you which skills are beginning to emerge. These are the skills that your child’s brain is primed for and will take the least amount of effort to master.  

The size, formation, and spacing of letters tell us a lot about the fine motor, sensory processing, and writing efficiency. D and B reversals can easily be corrected with changing letter formation.  These are just a few ways this experience will help you in your instruction.

This experience will help your child’s confidence because you will have a better understanding of where your child is now.  Knowing where your child is will help you to have more realistic expectations of your child.  It will also let you know what your child is capable of so that you can keep the learning experience at the peak of what he/she can handle without getting frustrated.  It is a fine line that is not always obvious and is constantly moving with each new skill that is mastered.  This is the first step of becoming a reader detective of your child.

Reading the text will take 2-5 minutes, the writing sample will take 15-30 minutes, TOWRE-2 has two-word reading sections (45 seconds each) that will be given during the consultation visit. I have set aside 50 minutes in total for the consultation visit, although it may not take the whole time.