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FREE DYSLEXIA TESTS
for problems in reading and spelling

Do you think someone - your child, or an adult - may be dyslexic because they have problems in reading or spelling? Do you are they think there may be something wrong with them?

They may be just confused, or have gaps, or have developed an emotional block - or they MAY be dyslexic and have these as well.

So clear up the confusions and gaps, and get rid of the anxiety. Then see how much that can help.

  1. Test for an emotional anxiety block
  2. Test for confusions and gaps
  3. For help to clear up confusions and gaps see ozreadandspell, the free online overview, or a DVD version, to watch and copy what you need.
  4. Some common symptoms that can be related to dyslexia - but they may not be.

    I had all the symptoms that can be connected to dyslexia except difficulties in reading and spelling. I learnt to read in the first week of starting school because I did not get confused - and I had an Arthur Mee's Children's Encyclopedia I desperately wanted to read.

1. Test for anxiety that blocks learning

Many failing learners are held back by an emotional block.

Indicators of conditioned anxiety to literacy

  • Reading can begin almost normally and then in a line or two stumbles and even collapses as conditioned anxiety takes over.
  • Learners cannot respond to instructions to try to write or read more slowly, or to LOOK at the words. They gabble or scribble like a cat on hot bricks - which is how they feel.
  • Sometimes the reason why a person can learn something one day and forget it the next is because memory is affected by anxiety.
  • Making a good response to a completely different approach. This is usually the reason why some barmy irrelevant methods seem to work - they act as distractors and alleviate anxiety, so the learners can relax with the actual reading task.
  • A galvanic skin response test taken while learners attempt a literacy task is a clear measure for anxiety.

2. Test for confusions and gaps in understanding how to read and spell

Test whether someone has confusions or gaps about reading or spelling that could be cleared up.

These may be their only real problem apart from anxiety and motivation that can follow confusion.

DO YOU KNOW?

Tick or x, YES or NO

1. How to sing slowly to hear sounds in words. . . . . . . . . . . . .

2. The 26 letters of the ABC in alphabetical order. . . . . . . . . . .

3. Basic sounds of the letters of the alphabet . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

4. Two sounds for C, G + Y, as in circus garage yabby . . . . .

5. Two letters can make one sound - ch sh th wh ph ng . . . . .

6. Letters have upper case and lower case. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

7. Letters can be different sizes and shapes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

8. How to switch letters around to make other words e.g. hit bit fit

9. The 5 vowel sounds a e i o u and their usual spellings . . . .

10. How to join sounds to make words like hot zip jam . . . . . .

11. The 5 vowel sounds a e i o u and their most common spellings

12. The 5 vowel sounds ar er air or aw and common spellings .

13. The 4 vowels sounds ow oy oo (as in boot) and oo (as in book) and their common spellings . . . .

14. Add 'e' to make long vowels in words, as in like . . . . . . . .

15. How to look at words to see if spellings seem sensible . . . . . .

16. How to look at irregular spellings of words. . . . . . . . . . . .

17. How to make sense of spellings that seem silly . . . . . . . . . .

18. What Old English spellings often look like . . . . . . . . . . . .

19. What French spellings often look like . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

20. What Greek spellings often look like . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

21. How to read and spell long words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

22. What Latin beginnings and ends of words are like . . . . . . . . .

23. Latin parts can help show meaning of long words . . . . . . . . .

24. Basic spelling system for the 19 English vowel sounds . . . . . . .

25. The 100 most common 'sight' words . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

26. Can use what you know about sounds, words, guessing and checking to work out the sense of what you read. .

27. Practice reading by re-reading books and songs that they like again and again, to make their reading easier and faster . .


3. For help to clear up confusions and gaps


Confusions and gaps about any of these 27 matters can be cleared up from the free online cartoon video Ozreadandspell, where you can download and copy what you want (Note: You need broadband Internet connection to view it,) or as a 30-minutes DVD/video Help yourself to read and spell, or find out where you got stuck. The video and DVD are no longer free, but the DVD can be obtained from the Language Bookshop, http://www.languagecentre.iinet.com.au, or Global Language books, www.globallanguage.com.au.

The program can watched and re-watched at home, as you want. It can seem to go too fast to take it all on on first viewing, so watch again until all of it is clear. until all parts of it are clear.
You can find out if you need more help from a teacher, and where you need the help. And it can be useful for teachers, to have an overview of phonics.

It starts from scratch. Learners who have already made a start can begin at Part 3, about Spelling, but it can be helpful to later go back and go right through the whole 30 minutes again.

The coloured checklist or the list above can give an idea of where a learner might want to start.

Ask your local library to make a free copy from online at http://www.ozreadandspell.com.au, from which more copies can be made.

The half-hour program prevents anxiety because:

  • It is watched privately, in the learners' own time, when and how they wish.
  • It avoids conditioned anxiety responses because it is different from what learners are used to, that has become associated with these responses
  • It has surprises to make you laugh.
  • It shows where learners need to ask teachers or tutors for help, rather than feeling helpless
  • The only 'activities' required are not clerical, but -
    1. joining in with the sounds, words and singing, making them funny, to be involved and learn
    2. applying each step of what they see to reading books, and
    3. completing the checklist to see what they knew already and found out, and to have a reminder of what they have seen. The checklist is not to be presented as a test.
  • There is no feeling of failure if they do not like the video - it is like not liking any other show. Adults can tell the kids at home that it is for them - so adults do not feel silly watching the ABC, for example, if they do not know it.
  • It can be presented as an experimental show and viewers are asked for their ideas about it and how it can be improved.

More information about Help yourself to read and spell, or find out where you got stuck


4. Some common symptoms that can be related to dyslexia - but they may not be -

Symptom
Present YES or NO?
The author was like this too, but was also a great reader
Your comments

1. Other family members had reading or spelling problems
2. Any family member left-handed?
3. Does not want to go to school
4. Feels a failure
5. Cannot say the alphabet backwards
6. Becomes muddled about instructions
7. Cannot copy easily from the board
8. Very clumsy
9. Misses lines in reading
10. Misses out words in reading
11. Misses out words in writing
12. Difficulties with spelling
13. Difficulties with reading
14. Difficulties reading aloud
15. Cannot write in straight lines
16. Has no book or magazine they particularly want to read
17. Becomes anxious or reluctant with any reading or writing task

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1. Yes

2.Yes
3.Yes
4. Yes
5.Yes
6.Yes
7.Yes
8.Yes
9.No
10.No
11. No
12. No
13 No
14 Yes
15 Yes
16 No

17 No

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