I don't want to be that annoying parent but....

[Bananamash]

DS has just started a new prep schol, having moved from a good local state school. He is now in Y3.

He has only been there a jus over a week so i am proably worrying over nothing, but I am suprised at the level of work that he is doing. It is much lower than he is capable of. The reason we moved him from his old school is because he is a lazy so and so (!) but very bright, and he was not self motivated enough to do his best in his previous school. (It was a very full busy class, and he had worked out that if he kept his head down the teacher was too busy to chivy him, so he could get away with chatting to friends, gazing out of the window etc).

For example, he was on free reading at his old school. He LOVES reading- it is something he enjoys doing and has always tried hard at. He wants to do it, unlike written work. His favourite books are BeastQuest (altho i think he has outgrown them in some ways he still loves the stories but reads them within an hour), The chronicals of avantia, The Roman Mystery series etc. When he was assessed for entrance by the school last year, they told us his reading was "exceptional" (i was over the moon!)with a reading age of 9yrs and 5 months. He was 7.5 at the time. However, since starting last week he has come home with Oxford reading tree books, stage 12 for two days and then moved onto stage 13. These books seem much easier than his choice of reading at home, although I will readily admit that he enjoys them. He currently reads a whole book per night. They are supposed to read for ten min every night, but he wants to finish the books. It takes him about 15 min. Should i be worried that they seem to have put him down some levels?

Also, his handwriting- which was never neat, has really slipped. They are supposed to pracice handwriting every morning but he doesn't get much of a chance as he is always changing his reading book!

Reading it back, I am sure I don't really need to say anything now and will just leave it for a few weeks for the teachers to suss him out and vice versa. Written down i am making a mountin out of a molehill. I suppose i am just panicked that he will revert to his usual- and do the least he can get away with- eg the messy writing. I suppose there is extra panic thinking that this is costing a fortune so i really don't want the same problem as at his previous school, I really want him to be encouraged, pushed if needed, to try his best.

Commercially produced reading tests invariably give reading ages in excess of a child's chronological age so a reading age of 9 would be a fairly average child.

wow, what an interesting thread this is! I'd like to now how it works out...

So, let me get this straight. You think that in the average state school in the UK the vast majority of year 3s have a reading age 2 years ahead of their actual age?

Give it till half term and after your first parent teacher conflab before panicking. They may just be assessing his level and then will move him to appropriate work. As teachers they will be looking for evidence of how ahead he is (or isn't), they won't take your word for it, they'll want to gauge it themselves.

That said, when DD went to the 3 local preps for her testing "the" school, the one the parents fight over, the one that has the good reputation (where we wanted her to go) was the one DD hated. She said the work they did was "easy" and if she went there, she'd be bored. So we didn't send her. The other local prep that is sneered upon by the alpha mummy set assessed her individually, sat down and talked to us about her abilities, and obviously had really paid attention to DD on her test day. We sent her there. She is really being stretched and enjoys it.

seeker I think it depends on what reading age calculation method you use, my DCs have been to various schools in various countries and it is amazing how every time we move, even if their reading age was only recently assessed, it can vary widely when re done at the new school. DS last year was assessed when arriving at a new school and told his had gone from 11.x (can't remember exactly) to 6.X in the new school, moved school 5 weeks later (many issues at the first school we moved him to) and suddenly he was reassessed at 9.X, he was 6 at the time.

No I think in the average state school in UK the majority of Y3 pupils have a reading age (according to Burt, Schonnell, Salford, et al) is more than 2 years ahead of their actual age (or the school isn't trying)

I was somewhat surprised that a reading age only 2 yrs above the chronological age is 'exceptional'. I would have expected half the class to be there.
Are you sure that you are actually realistic in your expectations. You seem to have been unhappy with the state school and have assumed that private was better. Did you not view the private school on a normal working day and ask searching questions? I never know why people pay for something they don't like.

What mrz said....

Just to second what people have said about reading age - DS is severely dyslexic and has really struggled to learn to read at all, is a long way behind his peers and his reading age is the same as his chronological age. It would seem from that that all the other kids having reading ages far in excess of their chronological age!

What MRZ + Exoticfruits are saying, like ..."reading age only 2 yrs above the chronological age ...I would have expected half the class to be there."

Then what the heck does "reading age" mean? Are the tests relying on very antiquated standards of reading for chronological age? How the heck can the observed median be 2+ years above what is said to be the chronological reading age? The test is a nonsense, if so, and needs to be recalibrated so that reading age = 7 is extremely close to exactly what the 50th percentile 7yo child can read.

Early days yet, I'd leave it. He needs time to settle in.

At my DD's school for example - in reception they make it quite clear that ALL children start on lilac so they can see where they are IYSWIM. Don't see the problem with it personally - even if they are way too easy there's nothing to stop the child racing through it and then getting on with a more challenging book.

All or school had their reading ages tested last year ( small rural school, average attainment, one or two bright sparks but generally "average" ) We had several 10 year olds with reading ages of 15, the vast majority were 11-13 and EAL children were achieving reading ages well above their actual age.This was a similar pattern throughout the school. This was in the main because we have a very thorough phonics scheme and the children were able to decode words quickly and accurately. The test also measured comprehension ages, which was a completely different kettle of fish! The reading ages in themselves were not especially helpful, the discrepancy between the two measures was!

The reading age tests are pretty meaningless anyway- they only measure decoding, not comprehension. There's a word in the last line of one that I can't say- ever. I'll have a look for it.

here it's the second wordnon the last line that I can 't say, however hard I try!

However, had you lived in a mining community 100 years ago, seeker, I expect that you wouln't have had a problem!

/Th/ /i/ /s/ /i/ /s/ seeker

Oh, I know whatbit means exoticfruits!

So the P is completely silent? I am a recovering lisper so a complicated "th" always makes me panic q bit!

I didn't say that you didn't know what it means-just that as a DC in the right time and place it would be so common that you would know it!!

There are a variety of things that might be going on here:

• You may have fallen for the 'private is always ahead of state' fallacy, and so be surprised that the level of work expected in the new school is lower than that in the old one. Evidence for this hypothesis is the idea that a reading age 2 years ahead of chronological is exceptional. DD and DS were both assessed as 13 - 14 on this test when they were in year 1, so c. 8 years ahead of chronological, and their excellent state school just described them as having 'unusually good decoding skills'!

• The new school may have fallen for the same fallacy, so assume that your son must be lower than their 'norm' simply because he came from a state school. Evidence for this is the very quick move up a level after a single day - they've started low and are building up.

• The prep school may genuinely have lower expectations than the state school... although there are some very strong advocates that 'private is always best' on MN, in real life private schools vary widely.

• Both your son and the school are sizing one another up - he's not leaping out to show exactly what he can do, and the school doesn't yet know how hard to push him. DS, a free reader from Reception, spent a couple of weeks in his new school at the end of Year 1 going rapidly through the reading book shelves before everything sorted itself out.

Of these, I would say that the last is the most likely at this point. If the situation doesn't improve over the next couple of weeks, I'd speak to the school to check that they are aware that he is able to do more. If they feel he's 'outstanding' in that class even at the level he is working at and they normally wouldn't expect him to do more, you might want to think carefully....

I don't know much about Reading Ages but IME it seems more like a minimum rather than an average. I've noticed that most children have Reading Ages far older than should be.

It depends a lot on your area-in some areas most DCs will be 2 years ahead-and they won't be the top end, many will be above that.
Good post from teacherwith2kids.

The reading tests mentioned seemed to be devised sometime ago, times change. They do not involve comprehension, just decoding skills which should be good with phonics (Or at least the test on the link).

There seems a great deal of emphasis on reading now (look at mumsnet-though maybe not fully repesentative of RL).This maybe due to reading being something easily compared in a growingly competitive world.

When talking about average is that "mean", "median" or "mode". Mean could be easily squewed by some very poor readers, mode is probably best to go on and "Mrz" and "Spaniel eye posts were very good for information on what "most" children were levelling at. Median likewise ignores the outliers (provided there are equal numbers of outliers each side of the distribution curve).

If anything I think private primaries are less likely to see exceptional pupils in the early years where scholarships/bursaries are less frequently available (to entice their parents!). If they have smaller intakes per year than state schools you are less likely to get the gifted children. You can argue that the average in take may be slightly brighter overall if the school is attractive to professional parents but this I think would not compensate for them having eg 3 times as many per year group.

It depends on the school. My friend's ds went to private school and was placed in the bottom groups and had to work his way up until he found the level he should work at. Where as my other friend at another school her dd has been placed in the top groups to see how she is academically for the time being.