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Edublox Online Tutor Assessment: Definitions

The report firstly provides an indication of reading ability as described in reading ages from 6 years to 12+ years, and secondly, an indication of current levels of some cognitive skills.

1.) Reading test

The Edublox Online Tutor reading test, based on international and widely used reading tests, consists of 100 words, graded from easy to difficult. The amount of words read correctly indicates reading age. The student’s reading age is expressed in years (y) and months (m).

2.) Cognitive skills that support reading and learning

The following scale defines the cognitive skill levels:

1 = Very poor; 2 to 3 = Poor; 4 to 6 = Average; 7 to 8 = Good; 9 = Very good

The skill level calculation considers age.

Visual sequential memory

Sequencing refers to our ability to perceive items in a specific order and remember that sequence. In saying the days of the week, months of the year, a telephone number, the alphabet, and counting, the order of the elements is paramount.

Students with reading difficulties often have trouble with sequencing. Naturally, this will affect their ability to read and spell correctly. After all, every word consists of letters in a specific sequence. To read, one must perceive the letters in sequence and remember what word is represented by the sequence of letters in question. Changing the sequence of the letters in name can make it mean or amen.

Auditory memory

A weakness in auditory memory can have severe consequences in the realm of learning for students.

Auditory memory involves taking in information that is presented orally, processing it, storing it in one’s mind, and then recalling what one has heard. Basically, it involves the skills of attending, listening, processing, storing, and recalling. Because students with auditory memory weaknesses pick up only bits and pieces of what is being said during a classroom lecture, they make sense of only a little of what the teacher says. Afterward, they can recall only a small amount or none of what was said.

Students with auditory memory deficiencies will often experience difficulty developing a good understanding of words and remembering terms and information presented orally, for example, in history and science classes. These students will also experience difficulty processing and recalling information that they have read to themselves. When reading, we must listen and process the information we say to ourselves, even when we read silently. If we do not attend and listen to our silent input of words, we cannot process the information or recall what we have read. Therefore, even silent reading involves a form of listening.

A poor auditory short-term memory is often the cause of a person’s inability to learn to read using the phonics method. Phonics is an auditory learning system, and it is imperative to have sufficient auditory short-term memory to learn, utilize, and understand reading using the phonics method.

Eye span

When your eyes move across a line of print, they move in a series of quick movements broken by brief pauses. The movements are called “saccades.” They are so fast that you are not aware of them. Your brain manages to blank out whatever signals come from your eyes during these saccadic movements. You are only aware of what you see during the pauses.

You aren’t even aware of the pauses, so it is easy to believe your eyes move smoothly across the page. But watching another person read, you can see the quick, jerky movements.

What you probably can’t do, because they are so quick, is to count the movements. The pauses, called “fixations,” last only one-quarter to one-fifth of a second.

The typical beginner reader makes an average of two fixations per word or, in other words, sees or recognizes less than one whole word at each fixation. This statistic was determined by photographing the reading of over a thousand first graders with The Reading Eye, a camera made especially for this purpose. Each child read a selection of approximately 100 words. During the reading, the average child made 224 fixations, about two fixations per word, or had an eye span of .45 of a word. This average span of recognition increases very slowly to 1.11, or slightly more than one word per fixation, for typical college students at an average speed of 280 words per minute. The average number of words seen at each fixation does not reach one whole word until the eleventh grade.

A poor reader will be inclined to pause more often for fixations, and the duration of each fixation will also be longer than that of the typical reader.

Another important difference between good and poor readers lies in regressive movements. All of us move our eyes backward from time to time when reading. Poor readers do it more often than good readers, but there is a further difference: Good readers know where to regress to. They go back to the beginnings of phrases and sentences, and they can pick out essential and difficult passages to reread (because that is what regressive movements amount to). Poor readers move their eyes back because they don’t understand what they have just read.

Increasing the learner’s eye span reduces the number of fixations, the duration of the fixations, and regressive movements, leading to faster and smoother reading.

Logical thinking

Logical thinking is the process in which one uses reasoning consistently to come to a conclusion. Problems or situations involving logical thinking call for structure, relationships between facts, and chains of reasoning that “make sense.”

The basis of all logical thinking is sequential thought. This process involves taking the important ideas, facts, and conclusions in a problem and arranging them in a chain-like progression that takes on a meaning in and of itself. To think logically is to think in steps.

It has been proven that specific training in logical thinking can make people “smarter.” Logical thinking allows children to reject quick answers, such as “I don’t know” or “this is too difficult,” by empowering them to delve deeper into their thinking processes and understand better the methods used to arrive at a solution and even the solution itself.
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Contact your local NA branch to assist your child with reading, spelling, maths and learning.

Edublox International welcomes you.

Contact your local SA branch to assist your child with reading, spelling, maths and learning.