Spelling & Reading Tests

[doitthisway]

Can anyone enlighten me, my 9yr ds has recently done a BSTS spelling test and scored 84 and Suffolk reading test and scored 83. He is currently on school action plus and working two years behind the average level of a 9 yr old. The teacher has said that this is avergae for someone working at school action plus, we have just recently been turned down for a statutory assessment as he is making progress, but from what I have read on various forums this is inadequate progress so I intend to appeal there decision but just wondered if anyone know anymore about the scoring system of these tests. Thank you.:)

I don't know anything about these tests.

But I do know that all you need to do is prove inadequate progress. How much progress has he made this year? Last year? Do you have his NC levels?

This is all you should focus on. If he has made one sub level a year or less, you have a strong case. School should tell you his NC levels, if you don't know them.

'Average for school action plus' is a stupid thing to say. You can be on SA+ and also be on the G&T register. All that SA+ means is you have some kind of outside help.

Looking at this sample report 83 = a reading age of 7y 5m I think.

I presume that they are standardised scores? if they are then they are below average scores. Find out from the teacher. The BSTS has a chart on the front for the teacher to fill in the spelling age, raw score and standardised score.

He has made some progress over the last few months but none prior to this,
Year 2 - 2c reading, 1c writing, 2c maths
he then went to junior school and marks dropped:
year 3 - 1a reading, 1a writing, 1a maths
Year 4 - 2b reading (up 2 levels), 2c writing (up 1 level) and 2c maths (up 1 level). Do you think this equate to adequate progress, because I dont think it does?

yes CQ they are standardised scores, please excuse my ignorance but what is the difference between standardised and raw scroes? When I asked the SEN co-ordinator what his reading/spelling age was, this was when she said they are average scores, I think I will ask the class teacher the same question. Thank You

Thanks for this Indigo, in a way it just confirms what we already knew that he is still 2 years behind.

Ok, in 2 years he has made 1 sub level progress in reading, 3 sub levels progress in writing and 0 sublevels progress in maths.

Def inadequate progress.

Between Y2 and Y4 a child should make 3 sublevels progress. So he's done 'fine' in writing - but inadequate progress in reading and maths.

He is also 2 years behind where he should be in all subjects.

Doit, standardised scores mean they have taken into account his age and 100 would be average for someone his age. 83 is below average, there would be a percentile to go with it, ie out of 100 children how many would have a lower score and how many a higher one, I'll google it. But they might have been his raw score which is just simply how much he scored, not taking into account age. They look more like raw scores to me.

A standardised score of 83 would give a percentile of 13%, so 13% of children the same age would do worse, 87% would do better. Hopefully more ammunition for you.

I would steer discussion away from the score itself, because many LAs try to use an arbitrary 'must be below 1st percentile', which is a blanket rule, and illegal.

The facts are:

You have to show that your DS has made inadequate progress on SA+
You have to convince the LA that a Statement is 'probably' necessary.
You should try to demonstrate why the school cannot cope on its own.

You can show that his scores actually dropped on entry to this school, and that he has only just caught up with his pre-junior score in some areas, and not yet caught up in others.

Also, if you can indicate what diagnosis or type of condition your Son has, we might think of some phrases - one of the easiest ways to secure Statutory Assessment is to show 'severe' and/or 'complex' needs.

Good advice, Lougle.

Thank you everyone for your advise :)
Lougle - I believe he has dyspraxia has been under the OT on and off for 4/5 years basically he finds the pace of the classroom a challenge, his speed of processing is very slow, he has poor fine and gross motor skills, the poor fine skills result in him being very slow in writing and quite often he forgets what he was just about to write, he needs a lot of prompting to remind him what he was doing. If it all becomes too much he has a tendancy to zone out. He is given prior warning if the teacher is going to ask him a question so he can think about his answer (otherwise they would probably be there for a good while, while he thinks of his answer). He has reduced proprioceptive sense so he continually uses sensory seeking behaviour. His upper body strenth is weak which results in poor posture which has an impact on his writing. Basically he is very slow in most things and needs a lot of extra time to carry out all tasks. We saw a paed in April due to go back next month who said there were possible signs of aspergers.

Ok, I've said this a hundred times on this board, so feel free to ignore me.

But, the only thing that helped my DDs very slow processing was Auditory Integration Training.

We went to the Sound Learning Centre and it was amazing. My DS has Aspergers and my DD has dyslexia and both have been vastly, vastly improved by the SLC. It is very expensive though.

The cheapest place that does AIT is this place

I have written all of my recommendations about dyslexia here as I found I was saying the same thing so many times here on MN

IME Doing things like AIT and Retained Reflex Therapy will do far more to help your DC than fighting with the school. All school can do is 'teach' your child. They can't fix the underlying physical problems which are causing dyslexia / dyspraxia and ASD. You have to do that.