Vocabulary struggles to assess for:

• Difficulty with spatial words (beneath, next to, left/right)
• Difficulty with relational words, such as prepositions (with, except)
• Improper use of conjunctions (since, if, but, or, because, although)
• Difficulty with interrogative pronouns (who, what, where, when, why)
• Inability to solve verbal problems such as analogies
• Limited understanding of synonyms, antonyms, and function words⁴²

Assessing reading

Practitioners need to understand if a visual or auditory learning disability is interfering with adults' learning. Practitioners should look at learners' abilities to decode or recognize words (i.e. letter/sound omissions, insertions, substitutions, reversals) and comprehension (i.e. recalling or discerning basic facts, main ideas, sequences, or themes). Through the assessment, practitioners need to determine how learners comprehend and recognize words both by sight and by hearing. When learners read, the types of cueing system they use should be observed, i.e. anticipate the next word, semantic (understand the meaning), and decode words.⁴³ Often adults with learning disabilities struggle with the process of reading, and minimal attempts if any are made to use any type of cueing system. Often they may focus more on attempting to read each word and lose the meaning of the sentence and complete passage. Before any attempts are made to begin developing different reading strategies, first discuss with the learner their understanding of the reading process.

For beginner readers, practitioners should assess phonological awareness, letter identification, listening comprehension and accuracy of decoding single words. Practitioners may want to look at the more advanced readers' speed and fluency of reading, and their use of comprehension strategies.⁴⁴ Overall practitioners need to look at learners' reading fluency, oral and silent listening and reading comprehension.