Reading Ages - how do people know what their child's is?

[tortoiseSHELL]

Just interested - there've been a LOT of posts recently - my child is 2.5 has a reading age of 8.5, my child is 4, has a reading age of 9 - how do people know this?

I have NO idea what reading age my children are except for ds2, who has a reading age of 0 . Ds1 is in Y2, and reading ages have NEVER been mentioned. I'm not sure it's a helpful thing anyway, for lots of reasons - presumably it doesn't take into account the content being read, just the words? And once you know your child's reading age, what do you do with it?

Thanks!

[NorthernRockCod]

9.6

[Blueblob]

At my sons school we're not told and they don't do a specific reading scheme so can't guess from that.

I can remember being given reading age tests at school and then we were told. Quite a number of us in the class had reading ages years above our actual age. So I've never given them that much cred.

[Ellbell]

Prettybird... sorry, I missed your message last night. Last year, when dd2 was in Year 1, we decided that, unless she had had difficulties with a particular ORT book (rare!) we wouldn't re-read any book (she gets hers changed on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so not as boring as you having the same one all week...) but would let her read something else instead. We get books from the library for her. We've found the 'bananas' books quite good (they are colour-coded by difficulty... I think 'green bananas' are the easiest, then blue, and so on...) and my dd also likes the 'Little Animal Ark' books (though they might be a bit 'girlie' for your ds). I think this is better than trying to 'jump ahead' on the reading scheme, as dd's school insists that she has to read all the books at a particular ORT level before she can move on, however easy she is finding them. (Yawn!)

[nooka]

Schools can be nuts sometimes can't they. I do think that a parent is in a good position (in general) to decide what is age appropriate for their child. I am reading books for 8-12 yr olds to my 7 and 8 yr old children at the moment (I know this because they are my old books, in the days when publishers were more inclined to supply such information). Neither of my two are great readers yet, but they are really enjoying the story, and if they could technically read this sort of book I would be very happy for them to do so. I remember often being advised to read books by school that I had read a couple of years earlier. Some things I regret a bit - I was put off Dickens for example by reading him when I was too young to appreciate his writing. But otherwise reading scheme books are not great for enjoyment, and if you want a good readeer you should let them (within reason) choose their own books to read for pleasure.

Prettybird, can't your ds return his book when it's finished and not hang on to it all week? Re-reading reading scheme books seems like a waste of his and your time, and may actually put him off reading if he is finding it boring.

[Ellbell]

My dd1 (age 7, just gone into year 3) had hers 'measured' at the start of this year. AFAIK it was never measured in the Infants. It is now written on the front of her reading book. I think it was the Sussex (???) test (but we got no explanation as to what that means). DD was measured as having a reading age of 10.9, but I honestly have no idea as to how to intepret that (except that, obviously, she isn't struggling with reading; but I knew that anyway...). I have questioned the books that she has been given by school on the basis of that assessment (ORT stage 14, I think), because she reads far more challenging stuff than that for fun. (She has just finished Little House on the Prairie... [nostalgic].) But her teacher said that she can't have 'harder' books because they wouldn't be 'age appropriate'. I'm not sure if Laura Ingalls Wilder, E. E. Nesbit and co are considered 'inappropriate' for a 7 y o...??? (DH took her to the library this weekend, and I have had to veto the books he let her choose - lots of Jacqueline Wilsons about domestic violence, abortion and stuff... eeek!) I have decided not to stress about it (school's choice of books, that is; not dh's - he got told off and the books have been put out of reach!), and to just let her read what she wants. She likes the ORT books, so she can read them alongside the other stuff she reads. As long as she's happy, I'm happy basically.

Sorry, tortoiseSHELL... Not sure this helps with your original question. But I guess the answer is that you may find out eventually, but it doesn't really matter that much!

[prettybird]

'cos we have to sign hs reading marker every day, and that is what he has been given to read. And he (and we) are still too much rule followers to just sign it as if he has read it every day - although I have been tempted

We do do other reading and encourage him to read signs and newspapers etc - he is still developing his confidence in de-coding.

That's why we love the Captain Underpants books - althugh they also give me the opportunity to explore grammar rules, while I have to explain to him why some of the things in the book are wrong

[nooka]

Why are you re-reading books? I can't think of anything more boring (I was forced to do this at school because you weren't allowed to have the next book along until you had read aloud the whole book to the teacher - which took ages with a large class). Why not take him to the library and have him choose books that interest him to read aloud once the school book is done?

[prettybird]

Aefondkiss - we have the opposite problem at the moment: ds, who took his time learning to read (just started in P3, only learnt to "blend" towards the end of P2, so only really "gpt" reading over the summer) has great comprehnesion, 'cos his volcabulary and passive knowledge of words is already large, but his reading level, in terms of the books he can read himself is still "in the middle". Essentailly he ios between groups - the top group in his class is way above him in terms of the full range of language skills (free form writing, creative wirting, writing down words he has only heard but not written himself), whereas the reading level of the middle group he is in is not stretching him at all. He can read it easily first night out and then is bored re-reading for the rest of the week. He understands all the words, so it is not a case of doing extra "comprehension" with him while he is doing his reading. It is not the school's fault - they gave him 2 months extra one-to-one tuition last year to keep him in the "top" group, before we made a joint decsion to drop him groups so as snot to damage his confidence.

We're not quite sure what to do next: our current thought is to talk to the school and find out waht books the top group has been working on, and then either borrowing them or buying them (as we could afford to - and then donate them back to the school) and wroking on them eithe rin addtion to, or instead of his "ordinary" homewrok, so that we can get him back up to the other reading group's level and so stop ds being bored.

I was a wee bit concerned when I looked at the ORT reading lelve and they said the books he is on ar age 6 (stage 6 - Magic Key stuff) - whereas he has just turned 6 - but I don't know whether this is due to the different school year in Scotland, or that just happens to be the lvel of books that he is reading and he is capable of reading more. He has started enjoying Captain Underpants books and also has a Horrid Henry book (although I am not sure if he actually reads that himself) - but is also now reading out bits from newspapers.

What reassures me is the knwoeldge that they will get there anyway, and that as long as we, as parents, continue to give them positive environemnts in which to explore and learn, they will do it for themselves! {grin]

[singersgirl]

The Burt test is very easy to administer and the instructions are very clear - it is free online and I just did it out of curiosity. I wouldn't dream of thinking that my DS's results were valid or meaningful.

You don't need any special training to do it. You just get your child to read the words until they can't read a certain number in a row. It tells you what to do if they pause or mispronounce. The Burt test is a pure decoding test though, so you can get a very high score without understanding any of the words - as my DS did.

[nooka]

I suspect that you need to be trained to administer and analyse the results of the tests - I wouldn't have considered testing my ds myself.

[singersgirl]

I'm guess when I say that I think they're all baloney I mean that I think they're a pretty rough tool. The actual age is not very meaningful - but of course it gives you an indication of whether your child is reading above or below the expected standard for their age. But then you probably know that anyway from what your child is reading (from Rosa's example, E Nesbit at 6; in my experience children don't want to read books they don't understand.)

[nooka]

These are decoding tests, which is about the technical skill involved in reading. Not to do with comprehension. ds did Burt and I think also some other tests too, and his reading age was about average (they did it on percentages though - x% of children of this age would be expected to acheive this), however his verbal understanding was way higher, which confirmed a diagnosis of dyslexia. I can remember being very pleased about having a very high reading age at school (I think it was connected with 11+ tests) and I did read books appropriate to that reading age, however I'm not sure that they were appropriate for my emotional age! I sneaked them out of my big sister's room (she's 9 years older than me, so a good range were available!).

[RosaLuxembourg]

I was one of those who gave a reading age for my child on that thread (she was tested at 6 as having a reading age of 12). I don't actually know what test was used for that particular one, but I assume it was a comprehension-based test as opposed to a decoding one. I do know that she was reading and understanding E Nesbit at that age, so I have no reason to believe the test was inaccurate.
My DD2, however who is seven, scored more than two years above her chronological age on the Burt test which I tried out on them all, but she was by no means as fluent and involved a reader as DD1 was at the same age. And DD1, who was eight at the time scored 12.5 or something, which doesn't mean her reading hadn't improved in two years, just that she had never come across some of the more obscure words at the upper end of the test.

[singersgirl]

Some years in the DSs' school we have been told reading ages and some years not; we last had one for DS1 in Y3. I think it is all baloney.

In my boys' school they work it out from the NFER comprehension tests - the children read a passage and then answer questions on it, and their results are compared against some 'norms'. So when DS1 was in Year 3 and 7.5 he was 'given' a reading age of 13 , but some of the children were given reading ages of 15 . None of these children was reading books aimed at 13-15 year olds.

Someone told me that the 'age' usually corresponds to what a child of that age would score if they took the test. So an average 15 year old would get all the questions in a test meant for 8 year olds right. However, the 8 year old with a 'reading age' of 15 might not 'pass' a test meant for 15 year olds. Clear as mud? Good.

I gave DS2 that Burt test out of curiosity when he was 5 and a half and he got a reading age of 12.8. Yeah, right . He is an excellent decoder, but at 6 still not ready for teen fiction.

[tortoiseSHELL]

figroll - that's possibly like learning to count to 100 without knowing what you're doing - you can say the numbers but given a number of objects, not be able to 'count' them. My friend's ds can 'count' but doesn't have a clue what he is doing. He doesn't relate it to quantity in any way.

[tortoiseSHELL]

Oh I totally agree figrolls - it's one of those things I vaguely remember from being a kid, but had forgotten about until I kept reading on here about what their child's reading age was (usually in conjunction with how amazing they were!!! ) - and it's just not something my kids have ever done, so I wondered how they knew!!!

[figroll]

Who tells you what your child's reading age is at 2.5 years anyway?

[figroll]

We were never told about our kids' reading ages. My first child was a brilliant reader at age 4 - she could read the oxford reading tree books really fluently. In fact, she was even able to read them without the book being in front of her! She memorised them and I was so impressed by her - what a fool I was (she was my first child and I was impressed by everything she did).

I learnt afterwards that being able to decode symbols is very different to understanding what the symbols mean. Dd1 probably had a high reading age - but she didn't know what she was reading!

I think it is best to try to be relaxed about it all - although I know it is difficult when other parents are telling you about their mini Einsteins!

[corriefan]

I've used a few reading tests in conjunction with others to screen for dyslexia. I've used a single word reading test in which the words get progressively more difficult to read, beginning with single letters and ending with words such as 'terpsichorean'. The person being tested keeps reading until they get 5 incorrect in a row. The tests are done on hundreds of people to find the average scores for different ages and tabulated in huge charts. When you get the score, you look up what age that score was the average for. It is a tool to assess ability to decode phonologically and recognise both regular and irregular letter patterns and words. As a teacher I don't think it's useful for most children as they are all unique, unless there is evidence of a specific difficulty and they seem to be struggling with literacy in comparison to other areas.

[cazzybabs]

I hate reading tests. They are inaccurate especdially at the lower age range. Yes it gives an idea of where the child is, but doesn't test all the skills - such as comprehension, expression etc etc.

But I do know my dd's reading age as I teach in the same school she does to and I peaked!!!

[Wallace]

love that nonsense words teat made me giggle

[Carotte]

We were told a reading age with our ds in primary, mainly that it was below his age therefore a problem. Not sure if they were tested/announced as a matter of course though.

[AeFondKiss]

I would like to know more about comprehension and reading, my dd has just been moved down in her reading level, the teacher says dd is a "fluent reader" but she has not past some criteria to do with understanding, it is no big deal but.... sigh, I am just a bit perplexed about it all.... stage a stage b, level whatnot, it means zilch to me.... is my ignorance damaging my child... is she going to be judged for the rest of her life for the reading "age" she has as a 6yr old... ?

[fihi]

OMG - despite being a teacher i thought reading age tests went out with the 1970's!!! Am shocked!

[lucykate]

ds is 2 and has just finished reading war & peace