do Y1 kids get 'tested' kind of surreptitiously?

[imaginaryfriend]

I was curious as dd mentioned being taken out of the class by the teacher by herself, asked to read a book which was a band lower than her normal colour then the teacher asked her, apparently, loads of questions about the story. Would this be a comprehension test? What's it for? What does it mean?

At this time of year they are probably assessing them so that they can track their progress during the year.

Some children can read difficult books without having a clue what the words actually means. My ds used to be like this and it meant that his teacher(s) knew to give him easier books and use them to build up his comprehension.

Maybe that's what it's about coppertop, thanks. Dd is reading quite difficult books although I'm not aware she doesn't understand what they're about.

It's not "testing" it's assessment. It's checking progress made and is used to plan next steps for your dd.
To ensure understanding of text the teacher will ask all sorts of questions to encourage child to talk about the book. The reason they use a band lower than child is reading is because "readability" is 90% (so a child should be able to read 9 words out of 10 on a page). If the child struggles with this then it is unlikely they will actually understand the story because they are working too hard on the reading.
HTH

So the books they bring home are the 90% readability ones? And the one dd got in the assessment would be closer to 100%? She said she found it very easy and knew every word.

I am sure they are continuously assessed.
Our year ones do PIPs in teh summer anyway.

Ds2 is in yr 1 and he has spelling tests every week so is 'tested' in that sense anyway.

With reading it's about comprehension as much as the ability to read the words - I found this out with ds1. His reading was so fluent he was reading stuff way ahead of his age but some of it was going right over his head because it was aimed at children much older than him.

I really make sure with ds2 (yr 1) we discuss the story, make predictions etc as it's something I didn't do enough of with ds1.

I don't have a problem with them being assessed. I'm just being nosy! And I wondered why they chose a book that was easier than she normally reads. Perhaps the teacher thinks she's not understanding the harder books properly?

DD1 calls it "special work". As in "we did some special work today where we all had to sit at our own desks and not copy each other. That would be a test, then

She's in Year 2, but they did similar in Year 1. And she sometimes reported doing "special work" in the staff room with just one teacher.

I do wish the school just gave us a curriculum and idea what they were doing so we could stop the cloak-and-dagger stuff and just know!

You should really get curriculum news each term so that you know what they will be learning.
They will be assessed throughout school and their progress will be tracked.
In key stage 1 the assessment is more on a one to one basis hence the 'special work'.
(This is why SATs are not necessary, teachers always carry out their own assessments and always have done).

Hello IF Charliecat here If you ask the school they should give you ideas of topics etc that they will be coverng each term for the next year.

Hello puss-cat!

We do get a topic list with a run-down of the various things they'll cover each term. But it doesn't say anything about testing etc.

Sounds like a reading comprehension test to me. I've realised that schools are assessing children all the time, most of which we are never aware of. I guess we can't really expect the teachers to tell us everything they're doing in detail, much as we'd like to know. There'd be no time left for teaching!

No, I wouldn't expect to know everything. I would like to get a sense of where she is / how she's doing though. Do they divulge much at parents' evenings? Reception evenings were never that informative.

why don't you just ask the teacher...we do assessments like this (and some end of year tests so track progress) but i don't tell the parents...would be more than happy to discuss it with them if they asked though

cazzy I didn't really want to ask as we have a parents' evening coming up soon and I can mention it there. I was just curious.

cat I realise that the teacher's are 'assessing' the kids all the time, of course they are, and of course you wouldn't get a letter each time. I was thinking more along the lines of an 14 sheet which told you what kind of assessments the teacher might be making over the year, including how guided reading works, how they organise book bands, how they decide on which spellings to give. Just a general overview of the year.