Help pls! Understanding York Assessment of Reading Comprehension Test

[OldForANewMum]

(Hi all, my first post on Mumsnet so go easy on me!)

TL:DR we've had reading assessment scores for our daughter that we don't understand and don't seem to tally with our experience with her, and are struggling to get extra understanding from the person who administered the test - if anyone here understands better and can shed light, we'd be so grateful!

Longer story: Husband and I adopted our daughter less than 6 months ago. She has various additional needs, arising from historical trauma and neglect with no diagnosed conditions (yet - there's a question as to whether we push for one or more diagnoses in the future). For now all we're interested in is ensuring she settles as well as possible with us at home, and in her new school where she started in September and we're entirely outcome-focused. We want her to be well and happy first and foremost, but we also really want her to be able to read better as she enjoys it when the frustration doesn't overcome her, and we recognise it's key to so much going forward. Senior school isn't far away!

For context, the school is great and we're very happy with them - keen to work collaboratively with them and very much not wanting to ever get oppositional.

Her class teacher is excellent as is SENDco apart from the points I'll mention here.

Daughter is 9 years old which is 'old' for adoption. Since she came home to us we have known she is operating at around 2 years of development delay - possibly a bit less in maths, a bit more in English and about the 2 years emotionally and in some physical ways (she displays some dyspraxia behaviours/ traits for example).
School have given her the York Test for Reading Comprehension. Results are:

Accuracy:
Ability score - 52
Standard score - 99
Percentile rank - 47
Age equivalent - 9:00

Reading Rate:
Ability score - 49
Standard score - 85
Percentile rank - 16
Age equivalent - 7:06

Comprehension:
Ability score - 55
Standard score - 98
Percentile rank - 45
Age equivalent - 8:00

We are surprised by these scores as we basically think the ages given are older / higher than the age at which we see her 'performing' (her actual age is 9 years 3 months). Put simply, we feel she's a lot further behind on accuracy and to a lesser extent, comprehension than the above ages in the scores suggest. We're not professionals but we do read with her a lot and we spent two years reading with children in our local primary school as preparation for adoption, so we have a small amount of knowledge and experience. The specific mistakes she makes frequently tick basically every box in credible online website (Dyslexia association, NHS etc) lists of dyslexia traits, which is why we then asked for her to have initial dyslexia screening which has come out at 'high' risk of dyslexia.

To go back to the York scores, we asked the school SENDco to explain why they're so good (!) and she pointed out that the start point was a basic test to determine which text to use, and that the text used was younger than our daughter's age which has affected the results (i.e. made them look better than they are). I don't understand this as I'd have thought the methodology (which I know nothing about and can't seem to find much of help online) should allow for this - if it's going to convert raw scores into reading ages then surely the conversion should allow for the fact an easier text has been used?

We have a meeting with the school coming up, teacher and SENDco, and we will ask about it then but so far I get the impression the SENDco doesn't fully understand this point.

If there is anyone on here who understands this assessment better I'd be so grateful for some feedback. Our goal is simply to understand as best we can, to 'arm' ourselves appropriately to respond as our understanding of where she is, and the school's, develops in the coming months. She's only ever been educated mainstream and with no EHCP and whilst we'd love that she never 'needs' that, in reality we feel that's the territory we may be in and if so we want it recognised and addressed, not underplayed.

TL:DR we've had assessment scores for our daughter that we don't understand, and are struggling to get extra understanding from the person who administered the test - if anyone here understands better and can shed light, we'd be so grateful!

As it's a screening test, there is room for error and the only way to be certain on dyslexia or not is to push for a full educational psychologist assessment instead. Whether school would pay for that is a completely different matter. You can apply for an EHCP yourself as parents without a diagnosis once you ve built up some evidence to apply with.
Its area dependent but there's some nhs areas that stop covering dyspraxia diagnosis as low as 11 years old so if you re considering it as a possibility could be better to look into the NHS route for that sooner rather than later.

The problem is the tests in isolation give a limited amount of information. Performance in everyday life and in the classroom is affected by so many other areas, which is why a good educational psychologist's assessment will include a range of cognitive testing as well as observation and discussion with the child/you/school. In isolation, scores in one test can give a misleading picture.

From your post, the Passage Reading Primary test has been used. That is for ages 5-11. There are different levels of passages within that, so it may be the school has used one of the easier passages, although the interpretation would have accounted for that.

Has DD ever had an ed psych assessment? What support is the school providing? You can request an EHCNA yourself. On their website, IPSEA has a model letter you can use. If the LA agrees to assess, it would then include an EP assessment. The NHS doesn't routinely diagnose dyslexia now. Some LAs, unlawfully, have blanket policies for their EPs not formally diagnosing either.

Thanks both for your responses. I'll be Googling lots of the acronyms and doing further research later! (very new to this - as humans we're on the ball, but we've a lot to learn in this space!)

@BrightYellowTrain yes, it was a reading passage test and you've said the same as I'm thinking - I would have thought the methodology to convert from raw scores to reading age should take account of the fact that (for example) a reading passage for a 6 year old was used rather than for a 9 year old, and that the 'years and months' score should reflect that, rather than they read an easier passage ergo they achieved the accuracy and reading rate that would be expected for a 9 year old reading a more difficult passage, meaning their 'years and months' score was artificially high. This is what the SENDco was implying to me but that makes no sense to me, what's the point of converting a raw number into years and months if the resulting numbers are fundamentally misleading?!

There has never been an es psych assessment - lots of professionals involved in her life but social workers, support staff adn the odd therapist outside of school, whereas in school it's just been teachers and TAs, plus an ELSA in previous school - some great people by all accounts, and we've met some too, Issue is birth parents were keen to push for all sorts of diagnoses as they wanted to blame the poor home environment on her and her 'special needs' rather than the reality which was their inability to parent (not parent properly, parent at all). They had it the wrong way around. Her previous school understandably resistant to this as were social services. However now looking at things afresh and based on where she is now, we need to make a clear assessment of where she is and her needs, and what best supports her to move forward. New school are great so hopefully we can work with them on it.

I don't want to get hung up on this one test score but I suspect it might have been administered somewhat incorrectly.... either that, we're missing something fundamental the school hasn't so far been able to explain, or the methodology is seriously odd/ deficient (the latter seems unlikely).

We have a meeting with the school coming up - we might ask them about an ed psych assessment.

My only concern about that is that DD is often resistant to assessments and any perception of being grilled or poked/ prodded. In her little life she's had a lot of this unfortunately, as looked after children have a lot of medicals etc and she has a couple of medical conditions (not relevant to her academic or emotional side) that have meant even more of that. I do wonder if she'd even participate properly in an ed psych assessment, though I have to suspect the people who do these jobs are skilled at overcoming that kind of resistance...? She's generally engaged and engaging, and a good talker - which helps!

@1995SENNDMUM thanks for your comments about dyspraxia specifically - we still have a LA nurse contact at the moment so might check that out with her.

It varies in different places precisely how they do it but for the most part it ll be a paedtrician and occupational therapist who would carry out a dyspraxia assessment. (got my diagnosis 20 years ago and unfortunately I know the only charity for it closed down this year so I m afraid I ve no decent dyspraxia specific resources to sign post you too).
Ed psychs try to engage children with the different tests as best they can, some of them are almost puzzles in a sense so hopefully that will help her engage with those.

DD = Dear or Darling Daughter
EHCNA = Education, Health and Care Needs Assessment
EHCP = Education, Health and Care Plan
IPSEA = Independent Provider of Special Education Advice (a charity)
EP = Educational Psychologist
LA = Local authority

An easier passage can skew the results for some DC because even though the scoring takes the passage level (which isn’t necessarily based on age) into account, a child may be much more fluent with a lower level passage and struggle in a way that isn’t linear with a harder passage. From what you have posted, the test wasn’t necessarily conducted incorrectly. Various things influence what passages are used. The validity of the test as a whole isn’t questionable, it just shouldn’t be used in complete isolation.

You would be amazed at what a good EP can elicit even if DD struggles to engage.

The benefit of requesting an EHCNA is it can also include OT and SALT assessments. Both would be helpful even if DD is a good talker (SALT is about more than the physical ability to talk).

Puzzles can go either way - she's not very resilient with risk of getting things wrong and with frustration. There are a minority of puzzles she likes and when she does, she can go for ages with them. But many she won't even try (even with us).
Re: dyspraxia - that's very helpful indeed, thank you.

"and struggle in a way that isn’t linear with a harder passage" - that actually really does make sense. I do wonder if basically there are a load of words she's memorised (she struggles to segment and decode) and at the lower level she can read fluently with memorised words, but at the higher level it requires her to decode, and she can't - ergo, much 'worse' reading. This would chime with the non-linear point you make, and also with potential dyslexia i.e. intelligent child, can memorise but can't decode hence there's a ceiling to her achievement in reading, and she's reached it.

Also thanks for the glossary! DD I knew, the rest v helpful!

[sorry, both, for delayed responses - in between sorting her out!]

The YARC is a passage reading assessment, which means that those taking it read passages of text. Two passages need to be completed for the scoring process, and if she got a reading rate score, then she read at least the first three passages with almost complete accuracy. I say almost complete accuracy, as you can make some errors (15/20 dependent on the passage before the assessment is stopped). These errors are accounted for in the scoring. The thing with passages of text is that the person reading can use the context of the passage to help them with the words if they know the sort of vocabulary that might be used. For example, there is one about going on an aeroplane, one about going into school, so if they know the vocab and have good comprehension, that can help.

Don’t look at the ages, look at the standardised scores. Between 85 and 115 is broadly ‘within the average range’, although you can appreciate that is a wide range.

A balance to this is using a Single Word Reading Assessment (there’s one in the YARC assessment book). This gives just a list of words that get increasingly more difficult and there is no context - they either know it or have to sound it out/use syllables etc.

Equally, you can be able to read and still have dyslexia, it might affect spelling more than reading.

Also don’t underestimate how different areas of cognitive functioning and other needs intertwine in real life experience (rather than stand alone tests focusing on specific aspects). For example, when looking at a reading comprehension test in the classroom or homework task, so many other areas come in to play e.g. sensory differences, working memory, language difficulties, even things like motor planning.

Thanks for this which all makes sense - sorry for the delayed reply again. I'm looking at the YARC assessment summary one-pager that we received (from which I quoted the scores in my original post). So as I understand it, our daughter's ability score of 52 on accuracy is against the standard score mid point of 99 with a range of about 88 to 108 being considered 'normal'. And Reading Rate she scored 49 on ability with a standard score midpoint of 85 and a range of about 80 to 92 (hard to read the graph exactly).

And then percentiles wise she's on 47th for Accuracy, 16th for Reading Rate and 45th for Comprehension meaning that 53% of children, 84% and 55% respectively will have scored 'better' than her. Am I interpreting the percentiles correctly?

And I want to reassure that I've fully taken on board everyone's comments about context and many factors being important - I'm not unduly hung up on this one test but would still like to ensure I've got a good understanding of it!

The key thing is our daughter has a number of things intersecting that make the real world experience of reading (and writing) for her tricky and complex. Even with us at home, our experience with her varies wildly, sometimes due to understandable reasons like how tired she is, but sometimes it's less clear why, and this is no doubt due to the complexity of the various factors. But unraveling them somewhat to give her the best chance possible is what we're trying to do, and at an early stage but trying to do it as quickly as we can as she's not had this kind of support in her corner before.