Difficulty at school- low RAVENS score

[Fizzysticks]

Sorry not an AIBU but just posting for advice.

My dd7 was finally assessed by the school (on the last day of the school year) and has shown a significantly low RAVENS score of just 5% and low score in phonological production speed and fluency, although she has good phonological awareness. Does this mean it’s likely she has dyslexic? She has been so down about school for the past 2 years and often doesn’t want to go in. The school have put her in a smaller group for maths to try and give her more help but this has caused more anxiety and whilst the rest of her class are in comprehension groups, she is still in phonics groups, which only consisted of children from the year below. Throughout the year, I’ve had meeting with the school and they assured me ‘she would get there’ and they didn’t think there was a learning difficulty but did finally agree to do an assessment and suggested private tutoring with her class teacher, which we have been doing. Senco phoned me last week after the assessment and said she will be more supported next year. I’m just wondering if anyone has any experience with children with low RAVENS score and what it actually means?

I don’t even know what this and my two are both severely dyslexic. Any reason you can get her assessed for dyslexia?

So you thinks she is talking about Ravens progressive matrices, which is a very old non verbal reasoning assessment? If so it would more point to general deductive reasoning issues (i.e. likely more general rather than specific learning difficulties). However I would push for a proper assessment by an ed psych.

If you look under "Resources", there are some parent leaflets, assuming this is the test administered.

https://www.pearsonclinical.co.uk/en-gb/Store/Professional-Assessments/Cognition-%26-Neuro/Non-Verbal-Ability/Raven%27s---Educational/p/P100009247?srsltid=AfmBOoqHi2kMjwYkVUuyXPixE4nCouf1SPyNQc4wRMa4uPKFy5wtPhCR

Thank you so much for your replies. I’d never heard of the ravens test before and just thought they might screen her for dyslexia. I’ll have a look through the information you linked, thank you for attaching it.

I think it's a measure of intelligence in to see if there is a mismatch between intelligence and attainment which could indicate a specific learning difficulty.

I'm not sure if it's the same thing but my step daughter (9) was recently assessed and was found to gave very low scores in auditory and visual processing as well as reading, writing and spelling. They did say some of it could point to dyslexia but it wasn't actually a dyslexia assessment. We are hoping to get some more help from the Senco next year too as it's been years of me trying to get some help for her.

@Dramatic I hope you manage to get some help for your step-daughter next year

I agree, I'd want a full ed psych assessment. If you can afford this, it might be easier and quicker to go privately, but you need to find a good one.

@SausagescanflyI think that’s the best idea too as from what I’ve read it will give us clarity and a plan to go forward. As she’s only 7, I’m not sure if we’ll have to wait until she’s 8 for a more accurate assessment. Thank you for your msg

Sorry if I have misunderstood, but the schools answer was paying her teacher for private tutoring? This is a huge conflict of interest. Where I am, we aren't allowed to do any private work with children in the same borough where we work, let alone the same school.

You can get a Ed psych assessment at any age, I have known children as young as 3 have them, wait times are long though due to a shortage

Can you read the letter again and tell us if it says "5th centile" which means something (like the growth curves in the red books - 95% of children in her age group score more, indicating problems with general reasoning not just reading) or 5% correct (which doesn't help much as we don't know what other children score).

@BushmillsbabeYes, private tutoring with her class teacher but this was arranged prior to the assessment she had last week after I’d gone to the headteacher with my concerns about her being so far behind peers.

@drspouse Yes, 5th centile.

I do wonder if your daughter would be better with an alternative tutor. Putting aside the ethical issues of a person paid by the state recommending and then charging for a similar service, (which is akin to your GP saying 'you need to seen urgently but you have to pay me or you will have to wait for ages') it would also give you a 2nd opinion, and also explore different methods which may suit your child better.

My daughters teacher this year hasn't suited her, her marks at Easter were 40-50%, we paid for 10 sessions of tutoring and her marks went up to 75-85%. If this tutoring is what she needs, you should see an impact quite quickly, vs if she has unidentified learning needs then you probably wouldn't see as much impact, and your money may be better spent on an Ed psych assessment.

@BushmillsbabeI haven’t thought about it from an ethical point of view but what you’re saying makes sense. I just thought it was a good idea seeing as the class teacher knew my daughter and her strengths/weakness but actually a fresh perspective might be beneficial. She’s been having this tutoring for the past 6 months and made virtually no progress, which is why I went to the headteacher as I thought there might be a bigger problem.