Reading level help please?

[Claw3]

I have a meeting with parent partnership soon and would like to give them another example of the school's lack of understanding of ds.

EP has assessed that ds has the reading age of 10.6 year old, he is 7 years old.

School have given him a 2a for reading, what level would a 10.6 year old be on?

Yes he was 'reading' in nursery, when i say reading, he wasnt reading as such, he was memorising words, but then again thats how adults read i suppose!

He kind of just read, no phonics, he didnt get phonics. He started by reading or memorising signs we went past regularly when he must have been about 2 1/2, by 3 he was memorising whole books. Nursery told me he wasnt reading, he was memorising, well he has never read then in the true sense of the word, he has always memorised words, no phonics, no sounding out, he just knows what the word says, does that make sense?

I think Dolfrog's right and this is called hyperlexia.

Yes Indigo, ive read about hyperlexia Dolfrog has mentioned it previously and it does sound very much like ds, reading has been ds's obsession from an early age.

Any ideas on how would i go about getting this recognised?

Although ds also displays some signs of dyslexia when he writes ie certain letters are written backwards, he also complains of words being 'fuzzy' and 'jumping around' when he reads or looks at picture.

Its confusing as both seem to be from the same family, but opposite ends, i wonder if you can have a bit of both.

If he complains of vision problems like that you really need to get him seen b a behaviour optometrist. It's possible he needs coloured glasses.

Indigo, ds's eyes have a long history! At developmental test, HV noticed his eyes were not moving as they should be and referred onto specialist optometrist, he saw her every 3 months for years and he failed every eye test, she dxed him with Browns syndrome, when he was about 3 years old (unable to look upwards). At about 5 years old it disappeared, so it could not have been Browns as this is a life long condition.

He then received his dx of ASD, so optometrist referred him onto another specialist to check for Irlene Syndrome (common in ASD apparently and it requires the coloured glasses or overlays) he did not have Irlene Syndrome, but she dxed oculomotor defiencies type 2, which means his 20/20 vision is fine, but following lines as in text was very inaccurate ie tracking difficulties. So this could explain the jumping and fuzzy, not quite sure about the writing letters backwards though.

He also cannot read from an interactive whiteboard and was found to have photophobia. .

God im surprised, given all that he can read at all.

DS rote learns words by sight too but has no underlying understanding - his language and comprehension is about age 2-3 and he is nearly 5.
I think of it as him having a database of flashcards in his head he stores an image of the whole word or phrase rather than understanding the separate parts.

So for eg he knows and can read the sign 'no right turn' - and he knows the words 'no' and 'turn' but he probably doesn't know the word 'right' and would not be able to it work out from the context of the sentence. So if I said show me 'right' he wouldn't have a clue what I was talking about, because he only knows the word in that one context with the picture of the sign

He rote learns books too and recites them. but would not even tolerate me reading a story. He's not interested in the story. He is only interested in the sound of the words and the pattern - so he knows exactly the order of what the hungry caterpillar eats each day for eg and will go over this again and again but not at all interested in the fact the caterpillar turns into a butterfly. Which of course for other children is the wow moment. He usually stops before the butterfly page and goes back to the beginning. So for him reading is really a stim. Its learning a pattern - like the alphabet or counting or songs - its the pattern he likes and that the letters in a word or the words of the book are always in the same order.

Although 2a is age appropriate, it would be a disappointing score for a NT child in the top 5% of IQ imo (probably get flamed for saying that)
Both my NT children scored level 3 in their SATS at Year 2 and last year about 1/3 DS2 class got level 3 (it is a class stuffed full of clever middle class kids) so what I am saying is if his ability is in the top 5% and he had no SEN then on underlying ability he should be level 3. A 10 year old would be level 4-5, but a very bright NT 10 year old would be level 5+. DS1 is working at level 5 and just started year 5. He is the brightest (well the most diligent at least) in his class. But I would not say his reading was anything amazing. He's clever but if you took the top 5% from each school in town he wouldn't be that special. In a mixed ability class he stands out but not by a mile.

COP says appropriate progress is based on ability level and previous level of progress as well as level compared to peers.
So they may argue he is age appropriate but you can still argue he is behind where his IQ suggests he should be and not maintaining his initial lead and is likely to fall further behind - because the focus will move more and more to comprehension.

DS3 (ASD) has just started school if they scored how many words he could read he would probably be top of the class (memorised millions of ipad flashcards). But in understanding and expressive language he is behind where the other children were when they were 3

You could ask how many children got level 3 - in fact their SATS result might be published somewhere so you can see how the rest of the class fared
And my 7 year old who is level 3 is not free reading yet and probably won't be until next year
I would think they should find simpler stories and go back to looking at comprehension. He could be 'reading' books which are far ahead of what he is understanding.
DS does sequencing tasks which helps - so we would have 2-3 pictures which for DS would be say making the pizza, cooking the pizza and eating the pizza. DS has to put them in order and then 'tell' the story - so at his level he would say "the boy is making the pizza, the boy is cooking the pizza, the boy is eating the pizza'.
But you can use this for comprehension of more complex stories and add extra steps so for eg your DS could have 6 pictures of a story he has read or knows and have to put them in order and tell the story. That way you can check if he has understood.
Also stopping in a story and asking what your DS thinks is going to happen next
The early reader books are set up for that sort of thing and are written exactly so that there is a 'whats going to happen next' moment so you can check understanding
It sounds as though the school have just satisfied themselves he can read the words - which is really just a memory test for our kids - but not done all the checking as they go along about comprehension

Thanks Agnes, that is what i was looking for the appropriate progress, rather than just progress (which im not convinced of anyhow, one minute school are claiming at Tribunal in May he was a 2a, Feb's IEP he is a 3, July school report he was a 2a) it was the same for writing etc too, a different score from one report to another.

Ds gets bored very easily with the basic books, he refuses to read them, but as you say, not because of the story, because he just wants more text. Very similar to your ds, he is obsessed with patterns. He 'reads' for hours on end, much like how he likes to line things up to make patterns, lego buildings are very complex, colour coordinated and well patterns again.

When ds was last assessed he could not sequence even at a very simple level, 3 pictures. Although he usually requires extensive direction to understand what he should be doing and i feel this was because he didnt understand what was expected of him.

Interestingly ds came home with a letter today from school asking for my views on academic progress, social progress and what my concerns are, as SENCO will be meeting with AS team, including SALT to discuss progress of AS pupils within the school.

Im very tempted to write that i have asked for a copy of ds's social skill programme and they have failed to provide it, so how the hell would i know what progress he has made and his termly SALT programme has not been updated since October last year, despite him not meeting the targets! But i have a meeting lined up with PP next week and will take it up with her.

Have you seen the new nice guidelines claw? Have a look on the NAS website, if not.

at eigtht i was assessed at a university reading level, i only stumbled upon a proper noun i hadent encountered in preint napoleon (i said neopoliton)

my comprhension however was not that high i could recal and fake my way throguh exams by craming the night before an reguritationg answers without understanding , thats still the case these days i understand meaning of words ( cause i read the dictionary) but not in how they go together takes me a lot of work to decode what something means rather then says.

it does seem to be an asd thing from what iwas told aslo

One of the ways my son found a bridge between reading and comprehension was I would make him read books that had been made into films then we would watch the film. The first few films he had no idea of the plot apart from recognising a few character names, but quite quickly he made the connection that books where telling a story the same as the tv screen. After a while he began to tell me what was about to happen in the movie he still had/has trouble reading between the lines but the improvement was huge.

2a is what DS1 scored for his English in general in the summer - high average for year 2, so yes, low for age 10. The target "average" for year 6 is level 4.

Where DS1 missed level 3 is the inference questions (I know, because I gave him "practice" tests myself before he did them at school) and this could be what is holding your DC back. Then there's the issue of the fact that the reading tests are also writing dependent - is your DC able towrite answers which give away understanding. Some of the responses are multiple choice ticky box style, but only a few of them - others rely on formulating a coherent sentence, even if only by parsing what has been read, and writing it down.

Thanks everyone for your suggestions.

Wassup, i have looked on NAS website, which guidelines? I cant seem to find them.

Ouryve, his writing is terrible, letters backwards, capital letters in the middle of words, very slow, so assuming the test was timed and he understood what he should be doing, id be surprised if he managed to write more than a few lines. (mind you he got a 2a for writing too, something else i find hard to believe)

www.autism.org.uk/en-GB/News-and-events/News-from-the-NAS/NICE-guidelines-on-diagnosis-of-autism-in-children-published.aspx

ey recommendations include:

* Local autism multi-agency strategy groups should be set up with managerial, commissioner and clinical representation from child health and mental health services, education, social care, parent and carer service users, and the voluntary sector.
* In each area a multi-disciplinary 'autism team' should be formed. This group should include a paediatrician and/or a child and adolescent psychiatrist, a speech and language therapist, and a clinical and/or educational psychologist.
* For each child who has an autism diagnostic assessment, a case coordinator from the autism team should be identified.
* Every autism diagnostic assessment should include an assessment of social and communication skills and behaviours through interaction with and observation of the child or young person and consideration of any co-existing conditions.
* A profile of the child or young person's strengths, skills, impairments and needs should be developed during their assessment. With consent, this profile can be shared with those involved in the child's education to help ensure the assessment contributes to the child or young person's individual education plan and needs-based management plan.

We now expect local areas to review their own diagnostic services against these guidelines to make sure that they are following best practice and that families do not have to struggle to get a diagnosis and early support.

NICE guidelines are considered as best practice and will be looked at by health and social care commissioners across the UK. You can find out how they impact on the devolved nations here.

The NICE guidelines can be downloaded at www.nice.org.uk/CG128 and you can also find our response to the guidelines in our media library here.

NICE are currently working on two further guidelines for autism. One is looking at diagnosis and management of autism in adults (to be published in June 2012) and the other is regarding the management of autism in children and young people (to be published in November 2013).

Thanks Wassup, very helpful.