Another question about reading and spelling age.....

[Sonnet]

From past expereince ( other children) and reading on mumsnet I was under the impression that a childs spelling age was always a little lower than her reading age.

DD2 has a spelling age 9 months higher than her reading age.

Does anyone know why that would be?

. please.....

. please.....

I am guessing that maybe reading age takes into consideration not being able to just 'sound out' the words correctly but also to read aloud in a fluent way that makes sense? So her ability to get the spelling right may be a little bit ahead of that?

Just a guess, though

Thanks - it maybe that but I doubt it as she reads very fluently and with plenty of expression.
Just wondered it it was a common thing to have as thought it was usually the other way around.

Depends on the reading and spelling tests!
Sorry to sound vague, but the tests used in schools vary hugely and often parents get concerned about tests that were developed and standardised years ago.
I agree that the usual pattern is for reading to be a little further on than spelling, but not always. It's not an enormous gap, and it sounds like your DD is doing fine anyway. Were you told which tests the school had used? Eg it could be a single word reading test, a sentence completion test, or based on reading short stories aloud. Is it a score for reading accuracy, reading comprehension or from a test that only gives one score? Spelling tests vary less in delivery, but do vary hugely in their standards.
HTH, although sorry if I've only given you more things to wonder about!

Thanks VW - I'm afraid I don't know the answers to any of those q's! - You are so right, it could be one of many things.
Her reading age is 9.3 months and her spelling 10.0 months. I was just a bit surprised.

Yes, might depend on the type of test used, but also some children do learn to spell better than they read, initially.
How old is she?

Last night during DD1's parent teacher conference, we asked about DD1's spelling as we think it's a bit behind her very advanced reading age. Anyway, he told us that often the best readers are not that great spellers because they don't have to think to decode when reading, so don't take as much notice of spelling as children who are slower to decode in their reading.

How do you find out reading ages and spelling ages?

there are different tests jux that schools can buy into
it might be something very minor - in that she guessed at a few spellings and got them right - thus pushing up her spelling age.

That's an odd comment, Bythesea, I'd have thought it was the other way round.

Everyone in pedants corner seemed to do very well on the spelling and grammar test posted there the other day!

wouldn't it be odder if it was EXACTLY the same? all this reading/spelling age stuff is beyond me

I don't think they're v important in the grand scheme of things. maybe with sen children (imp with my studnets and charting progress etc etc) but for the average kid, I don't see any benefits of knowing this info

Spelling ages are not really true, if you see what I mean; who says that a child of precisely 8y3m should be able to spell exactly the words that the test says? I know the tests have been 'normed' (what a marvellous word!) but they're still essentially spot checks and rather random. They're more useful to gauge if a child is working above or below where you'd expect them to be than to provide a real 'age'.

Thanks everybody for your input - much appreciated...

We are given their reading/spelling age twice a year and normally I say "ok" and move on because as someone else said I'm not sure how important it is - enjoyment of books has always been my aim not what level they are on.

Mentioned it to very experienced head teacher yesterday who also takes DD2 for group reading. She had noticed, as I had, that DD2 often guesses at words subbing in a similar in meaning word but one spelt completly different. When I pick this up DD2 just repeats the correct word with no problems and carries on reading....Therefore headteacher has assumed she took randon guesses in her reading test

Interesting insight into spelling age test Singersgirl.

DD2 is currently in yesr 2 and as of September (yr3)she will be esposed to an intensive ( 30 mins a day) of Ruth Miskin phonics programme - read write inc. I am interested in tracking her "reading age" progress which was why I took sucj an interest this time.

Thanks again

She's in year 2 with the reading / spelling age of a 9 / 10 year old! Has she been assessed as having a high IQ?

Do all schools do reading ages? If I asked at ours, would they tell me ds's reading age?

And I've never heard of "spelling ages" - am I missing something?

I think the tests that they do at my sons' school all produce raw scores, standardised scores and reading/spelling ages, but not all teachers choose to share the information. So I have only twice been given reading and spelling ages for DS1 (Y2 and Y3). DS2's teacher this year in Y2 has just given me his standardised scores which are age weighted.

You never get a maths age, do you?

yes maths ages exist for assessment purposes - we assess our (SEN students ) using some commercial schemes.

singersgirl - we do lol!
but we do have an extremely data intensive tracking system!!!
no idea how they calculate tbh, and they obviously use a totally different system to the junior school.
dd1 had a reading age of 12.6 in yr 2, and now in year 3 it's at 9.6. we only got spelling age at infants i think.
ds1 in yr 1 has a reading age of 9.6 (he def doesn't read as well as dd1 lol but are apparently exactly the same) and a numeracy level of 8.3
interestingly the numeracy thing has only been introduced this year...
fortunately i don't pay any attention to any of it and just smile sweetly and say 'ok'. i do think it's funny that dd2 has allegedly lost 3 years worth of reading skills in a year though i'm not telling her becasue i would like her to retain some faith in the education system...

I wonder why parents aren't usually told maths ages, then?

Romy7, your story illustrates precisely why these 'ages' need to be taken with a pinch of salt! Different tests test different things - and give different results.