Reading ages

[Brokenbiscuit]

My dd in year 7 has been given a reading age by her English teacher. I'm not worried about it, just curious.

Does anyone know what sort of tests schools (state secondary) use to measure reading ages? Do they just measure decoding or comprehension skills as well? What are the minimum/maximum possible "ages"?

And what is the point of them, exactly, anyway? DD is a good reader and is happy with her "age", but I imagine it would be a bit demotivating for a child who scored a lower reading age than their chronological age.

It just seems very old fashioned!

Reading age is massively important in regards to understanding exam papers. I get very concerned if I see a child with a low reading age and I teach maths. I have been known to comment on it during parent's evening for a child who is great at completing mathematical operations but struggles to interpret worded questions as they do not have the comprehension skills to understand and process what they need to do. With this in mind, I constantly push my 5 year old to read, read, read! I would love her not to encounter the same problems I did. I still die a little inside when I see worded exam questions that have lots of words!

As to how it is done, I am not sure entirely. At my school, year 7 do entry CATs tests and this provides all this data using some computer program. For those who have a very low reading age, intervention is arranged promptly.

The minimum age I have ever seen is 5 years (unreliable as child was EAL) and the highest I have seen was 20 years, which surprised me as I assumed it would only go to 16. I don't actually know the maximum and minimum though.

Thanks kitty, that's really interesting.

I do get that reading is really important, and I'm lucky to have a child who happens to really like it. I guess I'm just a bit uncomfortable with the idea of a reading age.