The cure starts with the correct diagnosis ..

The PRC Diagnostic Tests

We offer a set of free, no-obligation Oral Reading Diagnostic Tests. Complete, easy to understand information and instructions are provided for the test giver.

These tests may be downloaded, or obtained by request via the contact page. If you do not have the Adobe Acrobat reader (required to read and print the test), download it free from Adobe. The download and installation is fast and easy.

Click here to download the tests. When the file is on your computer, double-click to open the test document. A File Folder named prctest will be automatically created. Inside this folder you will find the tests, in a .pdf file named PRC_test.

Each diagnostic test is targeted to a particular group:

Surveys 1-12:

Students in Grades 1-4
Older students whose Standardized Reading Achievement Test scores have not advanced beyond Grade 3.5

Parts A and B:

Students in Grade 5 and above whose Standardized Reading Achievement Test scores are no lower than Grade 4

Both tests are included in the set. When used with the PRC program they are also employed as:

Pre-tests to identify and document a student’s inability to read words accurately and to assess the severity of the decoding problem.
Post-tests to document and assess the student’s level of accomplishment after completion of the entire program.

Decoding or comprehension?

A teacher usually realizes that a student is not learning to read as one would expect, based on the teacher's observation and the student’s obvious intelligence, but may not see any concrete evidence until a low grade level or percentile score is seen after a Standardized Reading Achievement Test is administered to the entire class.

However, this low score does not determine whether the root cause is a decoding or a comprehension problem.

Is the score low because the student couldn't read enough words accurately so as to understand the content?
Is the score low because, even though all words may have been read correctly, the student couldn't understand the material?

The most effective way of determining the answers to these questions is to administer an appropriate Oral Reading Diagnostic Test to the low scorers, a test that includes all combinations of letters that make one sound, such as initial blends, digraphs, diphthongs, and word endings such as -ous, -nt, -ct, tial, cial, tion, sion, -ble, dle etc. and all single letter-sound associations.

The students who decode correctly and consistently can then be evaluated with tests pertaining to comprehension so as to determine the extent of that aspect of learning to read.