When parents seek an evaluation for a child who is struggling with reading, they are often hoping for clarity. They wonder why reading is so hard and what kind of support will help their child.
One of the most important factors in answering those questions is which specific reading skills are assessed during the evaluation. Some assessments capture only surface-level reading performance. At Minnesota Neuropsychology, our comprehensive neuropsychological evaluations go deeper, examining the underlying processes that make skilled reading possible.
Three of the most informative measures are:
• Oral reading fluency 🗣️
• Nonword decoding 🔤
• Spelling ✏️
Oral reading fluency evaluates how smoothly and accurately a child can read connected text aloud. When evaluating oral reading fluency, it is essential to look at both rate and accuracy. A child may move through a passage quickly but make many small errors — substituting words, skipping endings, or slightly altering what is written on the page.
At first glance, the reading may appear fluent because the pace is fast. However, these small inaccuracies signal that the reader is not fully processing the printed words. True fluency involves both efficiency and precision. Without carefully examining accuracy alongside speed, important warning signs can be missed.
Nonword decoding asks a child to read made-up words such as lat, shope, or blonter. Because these words are unfamiliar, the child cannot rely on memory or context. Instead, they must use the brain’s sound–symbol decoding system — the core skill that allows readers to translate letters into speech sounds.
When nonword decoding is weak, it often points directly to a phonological decoding difficulty, one of the central features of dyslexia. Without assessing this skill directly, a child who is struggling may appear to be reading “well enough” on the surface, while the underlying decoding system remains fragile.
Spelling is another crucial — and sometimes overlooked — window into how a child’s reading system is working. Spelling requires the reverse process of decoding: the child must take the sounds in a word and map them onto letters. This is called encoding.
Because spelling draws on the same phonological and orthographic systems used in reading, children with dyslexia often show distinctive spelling patterns that reveal where the breakdown is occurring. Looking closely at spelling errors can help identify whether a child is struggling with sound segmentation, letter-sound mapping, or the storage of written word patterns. In many cases, spelling provides some of the clearest evidence of an underlying decoding difficulty.
Why Reading Comprehension Must Be Measured in Two Ways đź§
It is also crucial to assess reading comprehension in two different ways.
One measure should evaluate comprehension after the child reads a passage silently, which reflects how reading typically occurs in school.
A second measure should assess comprehension after the child reads the passage aloud.
Comparing these two situations provides valuable diagnostic information. Some children understand text well when reading silently but struggle when required to read aloud because decoding demands consume too much cognitive effort. Others may read aloud accurately but still have difficulty constructing meaning from text.
Looking at both contexts helps determine whether the primary challenge lies in decoding, fluency, language comprehension, or a combination of these factors.
Patterns We Often See in Struggling Readers 🔎
Many struggling readers develop compensatory strategies that can mask the underlying problem. For example, they may:
• Guess words based on context or the first few letters
• Appear to “forget” a word they just read because it was never fully decoded or orthographically mapped in the first place
• Skip small connector words such as a, an, the, of, or to when reading aloud
These patterns are not signs of carelessness. They often reflect a reader who is working very hard to keep the sentence moving despite weaknesses in the decoding system.
Why Some Evaluations Overlook Dyslexia
Some evaluations assess general or surface-level reading skills without examining the deeper processes that reveal why reading is difficult.
When assessment stops at the surface level, a child’s struggles can be misinterpreted — and a diagnosis of dyslexia can be missed.
How We Approach Evaluations at Minnesota Neuropsychology
At Minnesota Neuropsychology, our evaluations are designed to look beneath the surface.
Each assessment is comprehensive and dynamic, tailored to the individual child. Throughout the testing day, the neuropsychologist follows the testing data in real time, observing patterns as they emerge and deciding where deeper analysis is needed.
This approach allows us to identify not only whether a child is struggling with reading, but which specific skills need support — providing families and schools with a clear, targeted path forward.
For parents who sense their child’s reading difficulties have not been fully explained, a deeper evaluation can make all the difference. 🌱
