reading age testing

[juliemacc]

Does anyone know whether schools routinely assess childrens reading ages? My DD2 is in yr1 and reads stuff beyond what I would consider to be "average". This is not a boasting thread, I would just be very interested to find out what her reading age actually is. Thanks

You could probably get a ballpark idea by the level of books she is reading (there is a chart with the age range of the levels of the different schemes). Not sure about a more formal testing though.

Don't put too much faith in reading ages. It's just a snapshot.

Problem with reading tests is a lot of them just test decoding skills. I have an EAL child with a reading age on single word tests of 10.6 but an actual comprehension and understanding level of much less.
We assess reading levels twice a year with a SWT, but the more meaningful assessment takes place weekly when I hear them read or have them tackle a reading comprehension.
Scores can differ by more than a year, depending on which test you use.

I can't see the point of knowing what your child's reading age is - it doesn't really tell you anything you don't already know

I happen to know both my boys' reading ages as they have statements and it's recorded as part of their annual review. They have both been years ahead of their chronological age in both decoding and comprehension, but I didn't need a number on a piece of paper to tell me that

If she's reading fluently, chatting about what she's reading and most importantly enjoying books then you can be pretty confident that she's above average for her age

Reading age tests only take into account the child's ability to decode words, they don't test comprehension.
But, if you want to test her decoding ability...

1, Schonell Reading Test members.tripod.com/~gleigh/readtst.htm

1. Reading Words- Decoding homeschooling.gomilpitas.com/articles/060899.htm

1. San Diego Quick Test (found underneath the decoding test).

1. Burt test rrf.org.uk/burtinstructions.html

1. This is a test that looks at speed as well as decoding

www.readingkey.com/tests/readinglevel/readingtest.html

Handy links for finding leveled books.

bookwizard.scholastic.com/tbw/homePage.do
home.comcast.net/~ngiansante/inde x.html

A Single word reading age just tells you about that - it is reading comprehension which matters - do you feel that her comprehension of what she is reading matches her overall conversational comprehension? If so great - she is filling her potential there, is she able to write what SHE wants too? Lots of chat, books around, interesting visits and lots of time for imaginative play etc. will fuel her intellect best at this age and can cost nothing.