Parents of children who struggle with reading know this story by heart: their child can explain the concept clearly, answer questions out loud, solve problems in conversation — and then go blank on the test. The grade does not match the knowledge. A June 2026 commentary in Policy Options by Brock University professor Louis Volante, writing from his research on cognitive and non-cognitive skills, puts the problem plainly: schools are measuring students on what is easiest to test, not what actually predicts their success. Generative AI made the cost of that mismatch too large to ignore. For children with dyslexia, the cost has always been there.
AI is forcing universities to ask whether written tests actually measure learning. For parents of children who learn differently, that question has never been new — and the researchers’ answers point in a direction special education has argued for years. Here is what the evidence shows and what parents of struggling readers can do with it right now.
Common questions
Are oral exams always better for children with dyslexia?
What should I ask for in my child’s IEP or 504 meeting about assessment?
Does dyslexia mean my child is less intelligent?
Will schools actually change how they test kids because of AI?
AI just forced schools to ask if written tests measure learning. Parents of kids with dyslexia have been asking that for years. Here is what researchers now say works instead.
What researchers are saying about written tests and why
With approximately 75 percent of Canadian students now using generative AI for coursework (KPMG Canada, October 2025), universities face a validity crisis: if AI can write a passing essay, does a passing essay actually prove a student learned anything? Louis Volante, a distinguished professor at Brock University and fellow at the United Nations University MERIT/Maastricht Graduate School of Governance, argues in Policy Options that the question goes deeper than AI integrity. His research finds that both cognitive skills (reading, math, science) and non-cognitive skills (collaboration, growth mindset, self-regulation, emotional intelligence) influence each other and both significantly contribute to educational attainment and work success. Traditional written tests measure the first set almost exclusively and largely ignore the second. The solution he calls for: a shift toward “performative tasks” — oral assessments, case studies, portfolios, and small-group breakout sessions. Multiple Frontiers in Education studies published in 2026 make the same case, proposing frameworks for authentic assessment that stress oral examination, real-world projects, and reflective writing over standardized written tests. Volante notes that health sciences, business, and education programs are already moving this direction — but “selectively, not to scale.”
The move is being driven by AI, but the validity problem it exposed is not new. “Knowledge acquisition is necessary, but insufficient, in preparing students for their futures,” Volante writes. “We need a new path forward — namely, to fundamentally change how we assess and evaluate students.”
Knowledge acquisition is necessary, but insufficient, in preparing students for their futures — we need a new path forward, namely, to fundamentally change how we assess and evaluate students.
Laura Lurns · Learning Success expert
The measurement error that has always hurt children with dyslexia
For children with dyslexia, this is not a new argument. The International Dyslexia Association’s 2025 updated definition makes the mechanism clear: dyslexia affects phonological-orthographic processing — the connection between sounds and written symbols — not intelligence, not oral reasoning, not the ability to understand and discuss ideas. A child with dyslexia who reads at a fourth-grade level in fifth grade is not a fourth-grade thinker. The gap is in one specific processing modality, not across the mind. When that child sits a written test under time pressure, what the score captures is partly their processing speed and written word retrieval — not just their content knowledge. That is a measurement error. It has been costing children their academic self-concept for generations, and the education system has been slow to fix it because written tests are cheap and scalable and because the children who pay the highest price are often the ones with the least institutional power to push back.
Researchers now proposing oral exams, portfolios, and project-based evidence are not inventing something new. They are catching up to what special education advocates and parents of learning-different children have argued for decades. As Volante’s research confirms, the non-cognitive skills these alternative assessments surface — self-regulation, collaboration, persistence — are the same skills that predict long-term success. If you want to know what a child actually knows and is capable of building on, measuring across multiple systems — not just through written output — gives you the real picture. AI forced that reckoning at the university level. The reckoning needs to reach K-12 too.
Key takeaways
- The measurement error behind a wrong grade: Written tests under time pressure measure, in part, a child's written-language processing speed and retrieval — not just content knowledge — which systematically disadvantages children whose dyslexia affects written output.
- What researchers now recommend instead: Oral exams, portfolios, case studies, and project-based assessment capture both cognitive and non-cognitive skills and are supported by the IDA 2025 definition and multiple 2026 Frontiers in Education studies as more valid measures of what a student actually knows.
- How parents can use this in IEP and 504 meetings: Ask specifically about oral assessment accommodations, portfolio alternatives, and project-based grading — and know the tradeoffs: oral formats help many children with dyslexia but may add challenges for children with ADHD or social anxiety.
What parents can do with this right now
The shift is not complete and it is not fast. Authentic assessment is being adopted selectively in higher education and more slowly in K-12. But knowing this trend gives parents more specific language in IEP and 504 meetings today. If your child with dyslexia or ADHD consistently performs better in conversation than on paper, that is worth naming explicitly: ask about oral assessment accommodations, portfolio-based grading, or project alternatives to written tests. These are not workarounds — a growing body of peer-reviewed research now calls them better measurements.
The tradeoffs are real and worth knowing. Oral exams remove written output pressure, which often reveals more of what a child with dyslexia actually knows. But oral formats also introduce real-time processing demands, social anxiety, and executive function challenges that some children with ADHD find harder, not easier. Portfolio and project-based assessment tends to be the most universally accessible option. The question is not “written versus oral” — it is which format gives your child the clearest chance to show what they actually know. That has always been the right question. AI just made enough people ask it loudly enough that the research community is now building the frameworks to answer it.
The assessment conversation is also not finished with a single IEP line item. Knowing specifically which of your child’s processing systems are strongest — auditory, visual-spatial, oral reasoning, working memory — lets you advocate for assessment formats that match the real picture of your child’s mind, not the distorted one a written test produces under pressure.
University programs are increasingly making use of oral assessments, case studies, portfolios and small group breakout sessions in some undergraduate courses — unfortunately, this is being done selectively, not to scale.
Laura Lurns · Learning Success expert
Your child’s grade on a written test is not a verdict on what they know. For a child with dyslexia, it has often been a measurement of how difficult their particular brain wiring makes it to get knowledge out through the written channel under time pressure. The research community is catching up to that fact because AI made it expensive to ignore. The obstacle was never your child’s mind. It was a one-modality system slow to ask whether it was measuring the right thing. Use the shift to ask louder questions about how your child gets measured — and what fairer measurement reveals about who they actually are. The Learning Success All Access gives you the multi-system framework to understand which processing routes your child is strongest through — so you know exactly what to ask for.
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Your school district must evaluate your child free of charge if you ask in writing, whatever your income and whatever the outcome (US, 34 CFR 300.111 and 300.301(b)). That route takes time and answers a different question than you do. This one starts today, from what you already know.
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A screener is a starting point, not a diagnosis. If your child might need formal accommodations (an IEP or 504 plan), or you suspect a vision, hearing or medical cause, pursue a professional evaluation too. That is the only route to those supports.
References
- Louis Volante, Policy Options / IRPP (June 12, 2026) — Universities need new ways to assess learning in the age of AI
- Frontiers in Education (2026) — A framework for AI and vocational assessment in higher education
- KPMG Canada (October 2025) — Generative AI boom among Canadian students raises dilemmas
- International Dyslexia Association — IDA 2025 Definition of Dyslexia
- Sage Perspectives (February 2026) — Oral Exams in the Age of AI: Why Talking Still Matters in Health Sciences Education
