Ap English Language Evaluation

When I pulled Billy from his class for the evaluation, he was open and easily talked with me. It was apparent Billy came ready to give his best effort, but he grew tired of testing as time went on. When Billy encountered difficult test items, he would become frustrated, give up without giving much effort, and speak poorly of himself when he did not know the answer to problems. He appeared bored at times, and he expressed anxiousness to return to class as the session continued. Throughout the evaluation, Billy had a mature pencil grip and often held down his paper with his left hand, while writing with his right hand.

RESULTS FROM EVALUATION PROCEDURES:

All descriptions and results of standardized assessment procedures are held in the Appendix.
Significant results will be discussed throughout this section.

Learning Strengths:
Cognitive Ability:
I gave Billy an intelligence test (WISC-V) and can report that his general cognitive ability (measured by the Full-Scale IQ) falls in the average range. This means that Billy’s ability to reason and solve problems are what we would expect to see of a child his age. His cognitive abilities serve has a strength in the classroom.

Mathematics:
I gave Billy an achievement test (WIAT-III), which shows how Billy performs in several areas compared to other children his age.
Billy performed in the average range in the mathematics portion, which is how we would expect someone his age to perform. He demonstrates strength in calculating straight-forward math problems (numerical operations). In my interview with Mrs. Jones, she also noted that math is a definite strength of Billy’s.

Oral Language:
On the WIAT-III, Billy performed in the average range in the oral language section, which is what we would expect for someone his age. This section is made up of listening comprehension, which is how well Billy understands things that are spoken to him, and oral expression, which is how well can express himself with speech. Both listening comprehension and oral expression should be considered strengths for Billy. Ms. Jones confirmed this finding when she stated Billy is a good listener in class.

Reading Comprehension:
On the WIAT-III, Billy performed in the average range in the reading comprehension subtest. This shows that Billy can understand what he is reading as well as other children his age. Billy’s strength in reading comprehension demonstrates his ability to use context clues to take away meaning from words he may not
know.

Learning Difficulties:
Basic Reading:
Billy performed in the low range in his basic reading skills on the WIAT-III, which means that he performs below what we would expect from someone his age. The basic reading portion is made up of reading actual words (word reading) and reading words that do not exist in the English language (pseudoword decoding) but follow normal language patterns (i.e., “sab,” “mig,” “jop”). Problems in both areas show that Billy has difficulty understanding that letters are made up of sounds that all come together to form a word, which is called phonics. Billy sees entire words, instead of seeing them as being made up of small parts that can be sounded out. This causes Billy to have problems telling similar-looking words apart (i.e., said “started” for “stared,” “really” for “nearly,” “were” for “was”), substituting articles in a sentence (i.e., said “the” for “a”), and skipping over words entirely when he does not already have them memorized (i.e., “bulging,” “certainly,” “intention”), all of which I witnessed during the achievement test and when Billy read a passage from a third-grade book. In addition to this information, Billy reported that he “hates to read,” which also displays the difficulties he is having in this area.