Mumsnet Talk

He is in yr4
was told at the beginning of the year that he had reading age of 6 year old.

now just been given a different number not age related.. of 3b/c for literacy and 3a/b for numeracy.

School have an intervention in place for him but are not actioning it due to various factors (no time being one of them)

How far behind is he in reality???

Thanks

Those are contradictory assessments! 3s would be typical for start of yr4 levels, not 2+ yrs behind.
What ORT level is he on?

No idea sorry but that sounds seriously Crap of the school.

Slightly confused here.
If those are national curriculum levels (which is what they look like) then he's not behind at all. the literacy is broadly as expected and the numeracy is above average (and would put him in the top set of 5 in DS's school).

I think you need to ask the school for some clarification.

The meeting started late and therefore was shorter than the teacher expected, she has said that she wants to finish the discussion...

Could it be that his potential is greater and she wants him to up his game to his potential then?

She is properly concerned. to be honest she has worried DH and I to the point that we have been looking round other schools.. Is it going to be a non problem??

he isn't doing ORT's he has chapter books from the KS2 box level 5 no clue what that means though... as he is the eldest of our children we dont' have a comparison for him.

If he's reading chapter books (even if very simple ones) he's within a "normal" range for his age. Maybe you're right and the issue is the teacher thinks he is underperforming.
(unless it's an incredibly academic school and "normal" is evaluated as behind?)

There is no way he has a reading age of 6 and is reading chapter books.

If he's reading chapter books sounds more likely that he's a level 3 - which means he's doing really well.

Some serious miscommunication happening here.

Can he read a proper chapter book?
Can he write something reasonable that you can read with paragraphs, reasonable spelling and punctuation?

A 6 year old can't do either of those things.

he reads and enjoys chapter books.
the last one he read was black Dan
he can and does write reasonable things, however his spelling is pretty rubbish. He uses punctuation well though.

FWIW our 6 year old can also do all of those things.

He's not behind.

Well on that Black Dan link, it says it's intended for eight year olds and above. So he can't have a reading age of 6.

Oh God, I am now so confused...

And now I want to know what Black Dan's 'strange and terrible secret' is.

can't remember... tis a great mystery book though

But on a serious note, he doesn't sound behind to me with those levels.
It may be that he did have a reading age of 6, but has made a step up?

I doubt he's technically behind, but probably half of the 6yo's in my sons Y2 class are reading chapter books and a small chunk of them are on course for 3's across the board in their SATS. So it may be that he's simply average in his year, or just a bit behind the highest achieving of his cohort. Get an appointment with his class teacher to go over these conflicting reports.

Could the intervention be for something behaviourally related, rather than academic? Can he only achieve work to the 3b (ish) standard if someone is standing over him, helping him on a one to one basis? If not, then I don't understand why you have been led to believe that he is behind.
My dd1 (Yr 3) is currently working at similar NC levels but is considered to be a year or so ahead of where they would expect, which puts your ds at the expected level by that reckoning.
I would ask for clarification.

According to the ORT website that Black Dan book is aimed at children from "Year 4 Term 2" to "Year 5 Term 1". No way is your son behind.

My 6 year old is average at reading and he reads books where at least half the page is a picture. He is no where near chapter books.

I suppose it depends on the reading age test. One that we use (GTTP II) sometimes comes up with reading ages wildly below their NC level.

Either that or he has improved hugely in the last 6 months.

A child on those levels is in no way behind- average expected level for the end of year 4 is 3b/3a so he is almost there in Literacy and there in Maths already and there are still 2 terms to go.

I would query the reading age test.

thanks all,
have been out at school fete.

will go back and dig deeper into the details we have been given.

Go to the teacher, and say " sorry, I am really confused. Is be behind with reading, and what strategy could I adopt to help him at home?"

There is a difference though between a reading age test which is a tableof unrelated words which require a combination of decoding skillls and being able to read text,in which trickier words are placed in context and may be supported by visual cues, and comprehension. Agree you need to ask the teacher to explain the apparent difference in his ability but it doesn't sound as if you should worry.

We use a sentence reading test which tests decoding and comprehension LIZS