Stanford reading tests and book bands.

[addictedtochocolate]

Sorry for the long post but I feel I need to share the background, My basic questions are how reliable is this test and if my daughter's reading ability has decreased over the last year how can I help her?

DD is in year 4, she enjoys school and is the hardworking, conscientious, easy to teach(girly swot) type. She is good academically but not amazing. At the end of Yr 4 she got a sats level of 4 (no sub level) for her reading, 3B for writing and 3A for english overall (both national cirriculum and teacher assessment)

Her ofsted outstanding school is VERY keen on testing and she started Y3 on gold band. She moved up to lime with a reading age of 9.3 in Oct of Y3, stayed on lime with reading age of 9.0 in Jan of Y3 and moved up to dark green with a reading age of 10.6 (she says she should have been higher but you can only skip one band not 2) in July. HOWEVER last night she came home upset because she had been moved down to white (below lime). I have spoken to her teacher this morning who says her reading age is 9.0 and has agreed to retest her.

I am not obsessed with book bands, levels ect. I had to get DD to write the order of the colours out for me last night. DD is very aware of them due to her personality (she loves aiming for the next swimming badge ect) and the nature of the school. To my non teacher ears her reading has become slowly more fluent over the last year and I had no concerns.

breath aarrhh So how reliable (in the scientific sense) is the Stanford reading test? Her teacher was very keen to reassure me it was a highly scientific test. Am I right to go with my instincts that her reading is fine or am I being naive? If her reading has stagnated how can I (and the school) help her improve? We currently read approx three times a week about 5 or 6 pages. This varies wildly could be 1 page by her then 1 read by me on one night and nothing for 4 nights then 2 chapters by her on two consectutive nights. I try to let her take the lead in reading with slight nagging if it's Friday and she hasn't read since Monday. Am I too laid back about this? Should we have a stricter routine?

I think my big issue (and what has made me post for the first time) is that in my profession I would be aware of a patient's previous results and if my results were wildly different I would use my profession judgement about retesting and changes of treatment.

Thanks for reading

[acebaby]

I don't know anything about the Stanford reading test, but honestly, unless there is a pressing reason for putting your DD to down a reading band, she should stay as she is. Good reasons for moving down might be that she has just moved up and the new level is too hard or she has missed a lot of school and needs to do some revision. Your DD's teacher is assuming that a) the Stanford reading test is a reliable measure of reading ability; b) that whatever skills it is testing tally with those used to define the reading band system and c) that the difference between a score of 9.0 and 10.6 is outside the error of the test and the natural day to day variation in test performance that everybody experiences (can you tell I'm a geeky scientist by profession?)

I think you ought to speak to the teacher and if necessary to the head of year (or equivalent) to get this sorted out. I'm not usually a fan of making a fuss, but this is just so daft I think you should.

Good luck!

[hocuspontas]

Why isn't the teacher using her own judgement? Sounds bizarre to me. Also, unless there are problems with reading don't most children choose non-banded books by now?

[sarahfreck]

How did you feel she read when she was on the lime/dark green books? Did she read fluently and not have too many words she got stuck on? Did she obviously understand what she was reading? Does she read for pleasure and if so what kinds of books does she read? Reading tests vary; some just test de-coding ability, others test comprehension too. Could your daughter be decoding the words well but not be taking in what she reads? You should be able to form a common-sense view of her reading based on how she is coping with present and previous school books and her free-choice reading at home. I wouldn't worry too much about the actual test score - just how easy or hard the books seem when she reads them.

[mrz]

I don't use it but from what I recall the Stanford test is a group multiple-choice test that assesses vocabulary, comprehension, and scanning skills

[RoadArt]

Is it a different teacher who has done the assessment? Teachers sometimes have different standards and it could be the next teacher isnt happy with the levels assessed by a previous teacher.

Sometimes going back to lower books means their reading can be more fluent and confident, rather than stilted, stop, start, delayed whilst working words out.

How many levels did she drop by? Has her reading age dropped as well?

I am sure the best person to ask is the teacher, but I know that some schools mark results on specific tests/papers, and that is the result that gets recorded.

[addictedtochocolate]

Acebaby - I too have an inner science geek hence my question. The teacher looked horrified when I said I felt that this was an issue about the reliablity of the test and not reading ability. He replied "It's a scientific test, I just stop the children when they get 6 wrong" As if everything scientists dream up was reliable!!!!!! My gut feeling is that it is not a valid test either !!!!!! Reading seems to me to involve more than lists of words. I would be very interested to find out more about it.

Sarah - She seemed to me to be comfortable on the dark green. 2 or 3 words per page that she could not decode or understand. In my opinion she appeared to have a decent understanding of what she had read.

Roadart - She has gone down 3 (or 4 in her head) bands. Yes, it was a different teacher, but that is my issue about using colleague's previous results to inform your professional decisions.