What is reading age?

[strictlovingmum]

DD 6.5, Y2 youngest in the year has been apparently assessed back in February using a very specific reading test(she did say which, but I can't remember) as having a reading age of 6.9.
In teacher words yesterday at PM, it cropped up that teacher was hoping for a higher score, more in line with that ruby/emerald level.
What does it all mean?
It confuses me, because teacher also mentioned that ruby/emerald level age wise equates to children who are nearly 10 according to a benchmark assessment
TIA

It means that she is doing OK because she is reading at a level slightly higher than to be expected for her age. Taking children's general reading skills she is the average for a child 4 months older. The teacher obviously thought she was higher, judging by the reading she was doing on a daily basis. It is quite common for six and a half year olds to have a reading age of a ten year old. The time to really worry is if you have a 10yr old who has a reading age of 6.9.
As the youngest in the year, who is reading at a level higher than her score I wouldn't worry. Keep doing a lot of reading with her at home. She may just have been put off by the test.

Hi strictlovingmum:

Also a Mum, not a teacher, so this is what I generally understand but may only apply in our case (so how it is at our school) or could be a bit fuzzy.

Reading age is not necessary equal to actual chronological age. So Reading age is what level of book is your child reading at compared to his/ her actual age. So in your case your son (who would have been 6.4 (5/12 = 0.416666 repeating) back in Feb) was reading a at 6 years and 10.8 months (10.8/ 12 = 0.9) or rounghly 5-6 months ahead of his chronological age. One imagines there is a certain amount of error inbuilt in these things - but basically your child is reading at expected reading age or slightly above.

Ruby/ Emerald level can refer to colour of book scheme. Reading chest has a lovely link explaining colour bands and typical age range of book here: www.readingchest.co.uk/book-bands

However ruby/ emerald are also used frequently by teachers for reading group names - you might have ruby (see reading chest stage 1-2/ ages 4-5), emerald (see reading chest stage 5/ ages 5-6) and amethyst (see reading chest stage 8/ age 8). Quite frequently because teachers want to avoid competitive parents - they actually reverse the meaning - so amethyst will be the weeker readers, emeralds the middle ability and rubies the high ability readers.

What can hold your child back:

1. Slow reading out loud. (The can be solved through practice).

2. Skipping out words (Again, this can be solved through practice).

3. Guessing words from first few letters, rather than reading whole world (again - practice helps here).

4. Not settling down to reading work in class. (listening and paying attention are skills to develop too!).

5. Not always following the story or losing interest when others are reading (comprehension - this can be solved by listening to audio tapes (ideal for long car journeys) and discussing the story at intervals).

Some useful websites:

Oxford Owl - Reading (also has early maths support): www.oxfordowl.co.uk/Reading - there are free e-books, advice on how to support reading at particular ages and lots of great ideas.

The Book Trust: www.booktrust.org.uk/books-and-reading/children/ - great tips and use book finder to help you identify appropriate books (great to do before trips to library) - there are useful story reviews so you and your DC can get good idea of topic of book.

HTH

sorry - just realised you posted DD not DS - so for son/ read your daughter.

It could be that they used a test like the Suffolk Reading Test that tests a child's comprehension rather than just the words they can read (e.g. Burt reading test). In the Suffolk test children read a sentence with a word missing and then fill in the blank from a list of words.
It could be that your DD can read lots of words (ie phonically decode them to a higher level than expected for age - would score above average on the Burt test) but not actually know what those words mean (would not score above average on the Suffolk test).
I would imagine that the Burt type test was written when children were learnt to read by the 'whole word' method so couldn't read words that they hadn't been taught to read. Now children learn phonics that is not necessarily the case.
Hope that makes some sense in the waffle.

I would also treat the tests with some scepticism. DD theoretically has a reading age of 14 I think in Welsh (school language), but no way can she read books a 14 yr old would read, she's just good at picking the appropriate word to fill a gap IYKWIM.

Sorry, meant to say I'm sure there are children who are the other way round, & can read a book & understand it but aren't so good at that particular trick of spotting the right word.

The tests which simply have rows of unrelated words to read should state what they're measuring and why, otherwise people may well take their results out of context nowadays.