Reading age

[brainmush]

How important is reading age assessment in primary school? I was told at parents evening last year that my 7yr old DD had a reading age of 10yrs. A year has now gone by and I asked at a parents evening last week if a further assessment on reading age had been done and was told yes and that my DD now had a reading age of 8yrs! When I questioned why her reading age had fallen from 10yrs to 8yrs over a 12 month period I was told she maybe had a bad day and reading age isn't important!

The way Reading ages are calculated doesn't necessarily mean your daughter is a worse reader than a year ago but it does suggest she hasn't made any progress.

So how are reading ages calculated in school? I did feel DD has made lots of progress as she reads so much at home and really enjoys reading.

Usually children read a list of words (sometimes sentences) that become progressively harder. The teacher marks the 6th error and the reading age is calculated against child's actual age

Sorry to hijack OP. mrz do spelling age tests work the same way (as in the 6th error on a list)?

My 9.6yr old in y4 apparently has a spelling age of 5.1. I know her spelling is poor, but I didn't think it was that bad. Her reading comprehension is fine (recently assessed at 3a) and her phonics-reading is also fine.

I think it's mainly that she rushes, often misses out whole sounds of longer words, plus spelling teaching has until recently been poor across the school.

No spelling age is usually the number of words spelt correctly

With both reading and spelling there are a number of tests available and they all vary slightly.

Thanks. How worried do I need to be? What extra support would you be providing if she were at your school ? (from this months she is eligible for PPP).

She is old in the year but emotionally young. Her pronunciation / clarity is poor but she has a good vocab.

If her pronunciation is poor I would probably arrange some SaLT input if needed and systematic phonics for spelling. Apples and Pears is quite easy to administer 1-1.

Many Thanks. I did A&P with her in the summer but I just can't seem to fit it in with her during term time, she's too shattered from school. I would love the school to do it with her. (tbh I'd be happy to go in and do it myself if it meant it got done.) She had SaLT in Nursery, but has continued behind her peers who all seem way more fluent than her most of the time.
I'll go and see the SENCO at the start of next term, as I think it's drifting on too much for my liking.

I would always suggest ruling out physical difficulties first so speech, hearing and sight checks.

She wears glasses, had hearing tested age 5. We did take her back to SALT age ~6/7 but they were happy. She was prem and had poor early care (FC at 11 mnths), motor skills behind age (signed off from motor skills clinic Dr but waiting one-off OT referral -e.g. can't go downstairs adult style without bannister, struggles with cutlery). She can't sing fast songs as can't get her tongue around fast enough. SALT explained some of her speech related to motor skills issues.
Gets very frustrated quickly when she doesn't get things right so it's hard to get her to practice in anything but short bursts, even with bribes rewards.
We think elder sister 14 may be dyspraxic (motor skills, organisational, processing difficulties).