Benchmarking assessments?

[fififolle]

Can anyone tell me about benchmarking assessments please? My son is in reception and is going to be assessed for his reading. His teacher is very pleased with him and mentioned the assessment but I don't really know anything about it.

My school do PM Benchmarking. There's basically a book per level and the child reads it while an adult records how many mistakes they make. If they get under a certain number of mistakes they move up to the next level.

The books are quite old style and not phonically decodable though, and seem to mostly be checking the child's ability to guess from the pictures.

Thank you, I'd forgotten the 'PM' part. All I knew is that there was a list of words.

It's based on the Reading Recovery method and in no way relates to how children should be taught under the National Curriculum.