Reading ages and NC Levels

[JenaiMarrHePlaysGuitar]

Am at myself for asking about reading levels, but am idling wondering how NC levels correlate with reading ages.

As I understand it, they don't really and the old reading age system has been discredited (iirc we used to read a list of increasingly difficult words until we got to one that was too hard).

But am interested all the same - particlularly after perusing the Childrens' Books topic and reading threads with titles referring to DCs' reading ages - I have no idea what DS's reading age is - how do these posters know their DCs' reading ages?

I don't think that they directly correlate. Reading age is simply the ability to decode a word where as NC level is to do with comprehension, expression and understanding the bigger picture like style of writing.

Some schools seem to test children more and tell parents the results where as others (like ours) are cagey and tell us the bare minimum like KS1 SATS results at the end of year 2.

Do you think they're being cagey, or that they don't set much store by constant grading? I'm not sure how I feel about it TBH.

We get told their scores at the end of each year, and at the start of the year are told what their targets are. Which seems sufficient - but I do sometimes think I'm a bit too laissez faire.

Mine are at a state school and at parents evenings they don't even admit what group the children are in even though the system is so obvious that even the kids know.

in Juniors they seem to be more upfront about what level my children are working at but I've never had EYFS scores at nursery or Reception level or what level they were working at at the end of Y1.

Their targets are specific and not in terms of grades but help me understand their strengths and weaknesses better. I am secretly curious what their reading levels /scores are but I can afford not to know or ask because I know that they aren't struggling and find homework easy to do,

There's not that much correlation ime. DS (11) had his reading age tested as he has SEN - his reading age is 17 but his NC level was 5C for literacy. He can decode excellently and understands the meaning of single words but he finds inference difficult and has problems with writing in general, especially organising an extended piece of writing.

Our school was never particularly open about informing parents where a child was at either. I would have preferred to know more as I've worked a lot on DS's weaker areas at home, but he's had a lot of external assessments for his SEN anyway (most of which were done separately from school).