Why Parents Love Halifax Learning's Assessments

If your child struggles to perform as expected in school, you may have been advised to have them take part in a psychoeducational assessment. These assessments can be invaluable in both identifying areas of need and helping your child understand their strengths so they can apply them in the classroom and daily life.

A psychoeducational assessment involves an in-depth interview with the parents, your child, and teachers as well as personal observation and multiple standardized assessments. One downside to the assessments in the Canadian school system is that it can take two or more years to obtain one. To get one sooner, you’ll need to pay a private psychologist or agency.

Halifax Learning’s Reading Assessment

Fortunately, there is another option available while you wait for the more comprehensive psychoeducational assessment.

Halifax Learning’s free, one-hour online and in-person reading assessments are accurate, reliable tools that help measure your child’s phonological and phonetic skills, reading fluency, word recognition, comprehension, and writing and spelling skills. They can be highly beneficial for students with learning disabilities or other social or emotional challenges.

Parents who have their child assessed through our program come to us for a variety of reasons:

• Their child’s school has pointed out areas of concern, including low literacy skills.
• The parents themselves have noticed their child is behind academically.
• The student has been diagnosed with or suspected to have a learning disability or ADHD.
• The "the Covid Slide" has caused a student to fall behind their peers.
• They were referred by the school, an educator, or another professional such as a psychologist or speech therapist.

For more than 20 years, we’ve delivered the best evidence-based reading support program for thousands of Halifax students and would love to do the same for your child.

How Our Reading Assessment Works

Available in-person or online, our professional reading assessments are free of charge, quick and comprehensive, and for all ages. They take approximately 30 to 45 minutes to complete. Once concluded, we can meet with you to review the results and provide you with a copy of your child’s assessment and any other resources necessary to meet their goals. The results of this initial evaluation are then used as a benchmark for the student’s midpoint progress and exit assessments.

The assessment itself measures phonological and phonetic skills, reading fluency and comprehension, word recognition, and spelling and writing skills. It provides us with an understanding of your child’s strengths and weaknesses, so we have a clear view of the way they’re reading. We can then introduce specific strategies and techniques that can dramatically improve reading ability and comprehension, often within one year. Best of all, your child gains reading comprehension and fluency skills they can use for a lifetime.

Progress Reports

Once your child is enrolled in our program, their progress is tracked weekly so you can request a check-in at any point. Two additional assessments are performed during the program, one halfway through and the other at its conclusion. These assessments give us a clear picture of your child’s progress and let you see how well your child is advancing, where they’re excelling, and which areas might still need improvement.

At Halifax Learning, we believe every child should have the opportunity to achieve their highest potential. Our fully integrated approach to improving reading skills uses language-based reading and writing activities that help students, particularly those who struggle with reading, develop into strong, confident readers. To book an in-person or online reading assessment or to learn more about how our program can support your child’s learning needs, reach out to us today.