mamaraby Posted June 22, 2012 Share Posted June 22, 2012 I elected to do DORA testing for my rising 2nd grader. Based upon some of the difficulties he has with Voyages in English and the like I had a nagging feeling that there were some issues. Overall he did test quite well when it came to things like HFW, word recognition, spelling, and vocabulary. When it came to phenomic awareness (eg If you say the word "smile" and remove the "s" sound, what do you have left?) and reading comprehension, though, he's below grade level. On the comprehension part he's coming up more than a year below grade level. He especially has difficulties with inferential questions about the text. We already incorporate SSR and read alouds daily. It does seem, at least to me, that he is able to track the story. So I'm wondering if it's an issue of more practice? We probably don't do narration as often as we should, but is narration alone enough? If your goal is to help a child who struggles with reading comprehension, what would you do? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EKS Posted June 22, 2012 Share Posted June 22, 2012 DORA comprehension results can be confounded by working memory issues. When the child isn't allowed to look back at the text, as he is not in the DORA, he must rely on his working memory (or his general knowledge, which also confounds the results in the *other* way) to remember details. Memory isn't the same thing as comprehension. I'd have him do a reading comprehension test that *does* allow the child to look at the passage while answering questions, and see if there is a difference in the results. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mamaraby Posted June 22, 2012 Author Share Posted June 22, 2012 DORA comprehension results can be confounded by working memory issues. When the child isn't allowed to look back at the text, as he is not in the DORA, he must rely on his working memory (or his general knowledge, which also confounds the results in the *other* way) to remember details. Memory isn't the same thing as comprehension. I'd have him do a reading comprehension test that *does* allow the child to look at the passage while answering questions, and see if there is a difference in the results. I can see where that would play a role and could temper the results somewhat. He has struggled with narration and the periodic reading comprehension type worksheets so I don't think the result is necessarily out of left field. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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