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Join our Primary Education forum to discuss starting school and helping your child get the most out of it.

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Join our Primary Education forum to discuss starting school and helping your child get the most out of it.

Primary education

Reading Tests

92 replies

MrsGWay · 04/04/2013 14:45

I am trying to decipher what we were told at my daughter's parents evening. Her reading ability had been tested and she is beyond the reading scheme, despite bringing home turquoise level books. She needs to work on her expression (very true) but finds the books terribly boring. In fact she is a reluctant reader.
Apparently in the test she only got 10 words wrong which gave her a score of 30. Does anybody know which test this might be?

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Periwinkle007 · 04/04/2013 15:10

There are a few reading tests. Am trying to remember the 2 I have come across in my mum's old teaching stuff, Burt reading test is one www.syntheticphonics.com/burtreadingtestpage.htm

can't think of the name of the other. sounds more like Burt because that one is just random words, the other one I have seen is sentences.

Periwinkle007 · 04/04/2013 15:11

I don't think they test reception children usually. According to the Burts test my daughter had a reading age of 7.5 when she started reception. We got her to read the words out of curiosity. She is currently on Level 8 (purple) books at school but reads harder at home.

Periwinkle007 · 04/04/2013 15:13

nope can't be burt because that has a lot more than 40 words on it. sorry, didn't read that bit.

MrsGWay · 04/04/2013 15:20

Thanks for your replies. I asked my daughter and she said it wasn't like that. Also 30 would give a reading age of 6.9 which can't be beyond the reading scheme can it?

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MrsGWay · 04/04/2013 15:21

I don't think she got 30/40, another boy in the class got 3 wrong but was told this was out of 400 words.

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mrz · 04/04/2013 15:27

Can she tell you what the test looked like as there are dozens of possibilities

MrsGWay · 04/04/2013 15:39

Sorry no, she says she wasn't tested like her teacher described at all! Which is a bit strange as she told me about the comprehension tests she did.
I think I will just ask her teacher after the holidays. I know they are planning to assess her reading group again.

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Periwinkle007 · 04/04/2013 15:47

I love how children never tell us what actually happens at school or have a completely different interpretation of something. Perhaps the school didn't do it all in one go so she wasn't that aware she was being tested?

no 6.9 wouldn't be beyond the reading scheme. our school seems to go 'off scheme' after book band 11ish which I THINK is around Yr 3 ages so I would expect to be beyond the scheme you would be looking at a reading age of 9+.

400 words is an enormous number to test them all on.

MrsGWay · 04/04/2013 15:57

A few in her class (Y1) had extra tests. I must say that after parents evening I certainly appreciated how much work the teachers have to do!
I also didn't realise there were so many different tests, I thought they might be pretty much standardised.

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mrz · 04/04/2013 16:04

Could it be a practise for the phonic screen check? That gives a score out of 40 but not a reading age.

simpson · 05/04/2013 16:23

I was thinking phonics test too.

Ask her if the words were real?

ipadquietly · 05/04/2013 17:57

Are people really practising for the phonics check?

mrz · 05/04/2013 18:05

I'm afraid so and they will still claim their best readers failed because of non words

simpson · 05/04/2013 18:14

The yr1s were practising last week...

But I think they were being assessed in everything (not just the phonics test).

mrz · 05/04/2013 18:30

I teach Y1 and don't plan to practice for the check

Periwinkle007 · 05/04/2013 19:19

is there not an element of truth though in the best readers failing because of non words? I mean it is natural to want to make sense of a word. I would if I was reading and would be more likely to think it was misspelt than an alien word

simpson · 05/04/2013 19:29

Hardly any kids passed it last year, and this includes the "best readers"

If a child comes across a word they have never met before then it is an "alien word" to them. I also don't think they have to make sense of the words in a phonics test as they are not reading sentences iyswim (so not tested on comprehension) just decoding.

mrz · 05/04/2013 19:42

Put it this way periwinkle all our best readers (gold level and above -chapter book readers) scored 40/40 in last years check
simpson I know schools that 100% pass rate

Periwinkle007 · 05/04/2013 19:44

yes but I know with my daughter she just 'expects' things to make sense. having said that if she was told some of them wouldn't make sense and she just had to read silly words then she would probably do it ok but I can see why some kids wouldn't.

mrz · 05/04/2013 19:45

In life we meet non words everyday
cif
millicano
punto
vinyl
teflon
velcro

simpson · 05/04/2013 19:46

My DC school seem to had a real drive on how phonics is taught (no non decodable books till yr2) which is totally different to how DS (now yr3) was taught to read.

I assume this is because up to now results have not been great (well last years results only).

Mrz - do you know if a child can take the test early? I have been told no (although it was the school that initially suggested DD take it this year. Maybe LEA might have said its no go).

Periwinkle007 · 05/04/2013 19:47

perhaps their teachers didn't explain it well enough to the good readers then that it included words that wouldn't make sense.

My daughter did some phonics testing the other week at school (in reception) and she said there were some funny alien words in it. I know they were testing the children having taught 44 or however many phase phonic sound things to see which children were confident so they know which ones need to work on which ones next term so I assume it was all part of that, either using the year 1 test or their own version using similar ideas. she thought it was great fun and she certainly thought she had got them all right from what the TA had said to her.

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mrz · 05/04/2013 19:47

would she read spilt as split? or would she read what is there?

Periwinkle007 · 05/04/2013 19:51

I suppose yes we do meet words we don't know every day, hadn't really thought of it like that. But I wouldn't care if I mispronounced cif and said it as kiff rather than siff. in fact I might be wrong thinking it is pronounced siff. I don't know.

I find it a bit of a strange test really but then I find a lot of education concepts a bit odd at times, they go in fashions don't they and after however many years of poor teachers suffering one and trying to make it work they change it to another one and start all over again.

at the end of the day phonics works, or should do but it isn't the only part of reading so is a test like this showing anything?

Periwinkle007 · 05/04/2013 19:54

she would pick one or the other based on the rest of the sentence if it was in one. like whether you say tear or tear, you have to make a judgement based on the information you have, you don't think about it you just do it.

if it was just in a list of words then depends on her mood probably if I am honest. she would know both words and could read either but is a child more likely to make a careless mistake with that due to speed

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