Screening is not testing
The single most common misunderstanding families arrive with is that a school screening and a dyslexia evaluation are the same event. They are not, and confusing them costs time.
Screening is a short, universal check. Texas public schools are required to screen students for dyslexia in kindergarten and first grade. It takes minutes, it is given to everyone, and its only job is to flag students who may need a closer look.
Evaluation is individual, comprehensive and diagnostic. It takes hours across multiple sessions, it is given only to a student whose case warrants it, and it produces a written report and a decision.
A screening that raises a flag is the beginning of a conversation. It is not an answer, and being screened is not the same as being identified. If your child was screened and nothing followed, that is worth asking about directly.
Who does the testing
Depending on the route you take, the evaluation may be conducted by any of the following.
- Educational diagnostician. Common in Texas public schools, certified to administer and interpret educational assessments.
- Licensed specialist in school psychology. Often shortened to LSSP, a Texas licensure that covers school based psychological evaluation.
- Licensed psychologist or neuropsychologist. Typically private, and the route to a broader clinical picture when more than one thing may be going on.
- Speech language pathologist. Often contributes the oral language portion, which is central rather than incidental.
Whoever runs it, ask one question: how many dyslexia evaluations do you complete in a year. Familiarity with this specific profile matters more than the letters after a name.
What is actually measured
A complete evaluation covers more than reading a passage aloud. These are the areas a thorough report should address.
| Area | What it tells the evaluator |
|---|---|
| Phonological awareness | Whether your child can hear and manipulate the sounds inside spoken words. This is the core skill. |
| Rapid naming | How quickly familiar items can be named. Slow naming speed predicts reading fluency difficulty. |
| Letter sound knowledge | Whether the sound to symbol links are secure and automatic. |
| Word reading | Accuracy reading real words in isolation, without context to lean on. |
| Nonsense word decoding | Pure decoding skill, isolated from memorized sight vocabulary. |
| Oral reading fluency | Speed, accuracy and expression when reading connected text. |
| Spelling | Often the most sensitive single indicator, and usually the last skill to improve. |
| Reading comprehension | Whether meaning is being lost, and whether that loss is caused by decoding. |
| Oral language and vocabulary | Establishes what the child understands when reading is taken out of the equation. |
Nonsense word decoding. Because invented words cannot have been memorized, they separate genuine decoding from a large sight vocabulary. Bright children frequently mask a decoding problem for years by memorizing, and this is the subtest that finds it.
What the day actually looks like
Most of the anxiety around evaluation is about the experience rather than the outcome, so it is worth describing plainly.
Testing usually runs across two or three sessions rather than one long day, often ninety minutes to two hours each. Your child sits at a table with one adult. They read lists of words, repeat sounds, name pictures against a timer, spell, write and answer questions. There are breaks. Nothing hurts, nothing is invasive, and most children find it more tolerable than a normal school day because the attention is one to one.
What you say beforehand matters more than anything else that day. Tell your child the truth in simple terms: someone is going to figure out the best way for them to learn, some parts will be easy and some will be hard, and that is the point. Avoid the word test if the word test carries weight in your house.
- Make sure they sleep and eat beforehand. Fatigue affects results.
- Send glasses, hearing aids and anything else they normally use.
- Do not practice or coach. It distorts the picture the evaluation exists to capture.
- Mention family history of reading difficulty. It is genuinely useful data.
What you should receive at the end
A useful report does five things. If yours does not, ask for the missing pieces in writing.
- Names what was administered. Every measure, listed, with the scores.
- Explains the scores in plain language. Percentiles and standard scores mean nothing without interpretation.
- States a conclusion clearly. Whether criteria are met, and on what basis.
- Makes specific instructional recommendations. Not more reading support, but what approach, how often and delivered by whom.
- Lists accommodations. What should change in the classroom starting now, independent of intervention.
Ask for the report far enough ahead of the meeting to read it properly, and read the recommendations first. That section is the one that determines what actually happens.
The evaluation process covers the timelines and how to request testing, and treatment and therapy covers what a good set of recommendations should actually contain.
Where this information comes from
This page draws on the organizations below alongside the clinical experience of the therapists who teach at Key School. Where the sources disagree, or where a policy is still changing, we say so in the text instead of picking an answer for you.
- The Dyslexia Handbook: Procedures Concerning Dyslexia and Related Disorders Texas Education Agency
- Testing and Evaluation fact sheet International Dyslexia Association
- Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, evaluation procedures under Sec. 300.304 U.S. Department of Education
- Understanding an evaluation report Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity
