Parents and families
Booking an assessment with me
Most people ring wanting to know the same things. How long it takes, what their child will actually be asked to do, and what they are left with at the end. Underneath that there is usually a quieter worry about whether their child will find the day hard. Here is the whole process, plainly, including that part.
The process, start to finish
We make contact and find a date
The process is quite straightforward. We make contact and find a date that works for both of us. A full assessment is £450, and I ask for £150 to secure the booking. If you would rather talk it through first, a free 20-minute call is often worth more than a long exchange of emails.
We agree where it happens
I usually assess at my house in Trowbridge, in a garden office. Trowbridge is within about half an hour of Bath, Bradford on Avon, Frome, Westbury, Warminster, Melksham, Devizes, Corsham and Chippenham. Plenty of people come much further, from the Midlands, London, the Home Counties and the South East, and from abroad. If Surrey is easier for you, I also assess at Moon Hall Assessment Centre in Reigate. For families nearby I can also come to a child's school or home, depending on what is best for them. There is no right answer here, and it is worth saying if your child would find one setting much easier than another.
The assessment itself
I only ever see one young person in a day, so we are never watching the clock. I set aside four to five hours for a full assessment, and contact time itself can be up to three or four hours or so, depending on whether we look at numeracy as well as literacy. I tend to do it over a day for an older student, and maybe over two sessions for a younger one. I always chunk things down, and I never lump all the reading tasks together, because doing two or three reading activities back to back is simply too much if you find reading hard. Writing tasks get split up in the same way. I will also ask the person I am working with what they would prefer, because some people would rather get all the writing done in one go.
Breaks, as many as are needed
Students invariably need breaks and time out, because it is a very intense process. That is expected, not a problem. When I assess in school, I make sure students take their breaks with their peers, because that matters a great deal for their wellbeing.
The report
You receive a full written report, and for me that is two weeks maximum after the assessment. It is a long document, but an important one. I can send a sample report in advance so you can see exactly the kind of thing the process produces, before you commit to anything.
A conversation about what it means
Assessments are an important thing, and families almost always have questions. I am happy to talk it through so you can ask in real time. Sometimes a chat is worth a thousand emails.
What we actually look at
An assessment is not just a reading test. Across the day we look at:
- Reading skills, including reading aloud, reading silently, speed and comprehension
- Writing skills, including writing speed
- Comprehension of spoken text, which is a different skill from reading
- Speaking skills, meaning how you express ideas and use language to communicate
- **Memory skills, so we know how you best remember things, whether spoken, visually or hands-on **
- Problem solving, both worded and visual reasoning may be looked at to understand how you connet ideas
- Processing, how quickly and easily you can recall or make sense of spoken, written or pictorial information
- Phonological processing, how you process sound. This is the one that matters most, because sound processing is the thing that makes dyslexia what it is
- Maths calculation, where numeracy is part of what we are looking at, we look at quick fire maths fact knowledge and longer calculations
- Maths Reasoning, where we explored worded and pictorial problems and link them to mathematical processes
- Magnitude recognition, which is linking sizes and values to numbers or quantities
Taken together, your profile across all of those areas is what informs whether you are dyslexic. No single test decides it.
How long is the report valid for?
Under the current regulations, the report is valid for life, because I hold an Assessment Practising Certificate.
That means if your child later wants to apply for support, whether that is Disabled Students’ Allowance at university, Access to Work, or support in college, they can use the report as part of the evidence base for the application. They should not need to have it done again.
One honest caveat. Some universities and professional bodies are starting to challenge that a little, and it does vary by institution. If you have questions about how that applies to your situation, I am happy to talk it through.
Why I do not separate dyslexia and dyscalculia assessments
I do not split dyscalculia and dyslexia assessments, because the two often co-occur. Looking at literacy and numeracy together gives a truer picture of how a person actually learns, rather than answering one question and leaving another open. It also means that individuals do not have to go through two separate assessments and pay twice.
This is also why the length of the assessment varies. If we are looking at numeracy as well as literacy, it takes longer.
What the assessment is not
It is not a test anyone passes or fails, and it is not something a child needs to revise for. It is a structured way of finding out how someone learns, where the sticking points are, and what will actually help.
Most children find the day far friendlier than they expected.
Prefer to hear it from me?
The Elevator Series is a set of short videos, each about two minutes. Three of them cover the assessment process directly.
Questions before you decide?
Book a free 20-minute call. I completely understand that you will want to have a think as a family before confirming anything.