Question Concerning education

[Artlav]

I have a set of questions, mostly to USA people.

Consider these:
http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index3.aspx?id=3839&menu_id3=793

-Are these real school tests, and how representative are they for USA schools at large?
-Does grade 5 school mean kids around 12?
-What is Dyslexia Proper-Nouns?

 

[Belisarius]

Hi, I'm not American but I am a linguist and teacher of English, and I can help you with some of that.

Proper nouns mean names of people and places, as well as companies and nations. In English these must always be written with an initial capital letter.

I would understand "Dyslexia bundled Proper Nouns" to mean a list of especially difficult names which would create extra problems in writing or understanding because of a lack of clear relation between the sound (phonetics) and the spelling (orthography). A word like that might be "rhythm".

But looking at the list I find some of these are not this way at all. For example "America" is absolutely transparent, the relation between sound and spelling is clear. I don't know anyone, as dyslexic as they may be, who would have trouble with writing this word or speaking it correctly if they read it in a text.

PS - As for the tests themselves, I can't say anything because the pdf files refuse to load. I'm a bit surprised at the lack of writing tests, there are only a few, two or three years apart. Writing is just as important as reading, and where I live writing is tested just as regularly as any other skill.

 

[fort]

Artlav,

I'm logopedist in France. I'll like to say, in short: the Dyslexia Proper Nouns exist only in the brain of those that investigate it. Each season have it's new luna. Depending of the Dyslexia theory invoqued.

 

[PhantomCruiser]

A fifth grader should be 10-11 years old. My birthday is in May, so most of my 5th grade year I was 10.