bjk - dyslexia is just different because even more things from the LA will focus on 'progress' as the primary need is 'cognition and learning'.
NC levels are crap to try and show progress because they are completely subjective and as soon as you apply for SA you will find that the school reports 'progress' of one sub-level. 6 months progress in one year is enough to justify refusal.
Read the Rose Review (if you haven't already) dera.ioe.ac.uk/14790/1/00659-2009DOM-EN.pdf.
You need to use standardised reading and spelling tests to measure progress. They are objective, take about 5 minutes and can be done 2 or 3 times a year.
I applied for an assessment with DS1 when I only had dyslexia confirmed and so focused on this. He had made no progress at all from end of year 2 to end of year 5 using NC levels. After the initial refusal the LA bod who came to visit and put pressure on the school to do what they ought, said that we needed to look at progress during a Wave 3 intervention like Accelerite/Acceleread (? sp).
Essentially, what you need to do is calculate ratio gain during a Wave 3 intervention. See paste below for an extract to my LA:
'Many UK studies report results not in standard scores but in reading and spelling ages, from which ratio gains can be calculated in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention. A ratio gain of 1.0 means that the child’s skills are developing at a normal pace, but they will not be catching up with their peers. Brooks (2007) suggests that ratio gains of less than 1.4 are of ‘doubtful educational significance’, between 1.4 and 2.0 of ‘modest impact’, between 2.0 and 3.0 of ‘useful impact’, between 3.0 and 4.0 of ‘substantial impact’ and above 4.0 of ‘remarkable impact’ (Brooks. 2007, p. 289).
However, Brooks (2007) points out that ordinary teaching (i.e. no intervention) does not enable children with literacy difficulties to catch up, and hence it is fair to presume that, in the absence of control or comparison groups, and where effect sizes cannot be calculated, findings of ratio gains in excess of 2.0 may be taken as good evidence in support of the method employed. Indeed, several studies have shown that, without help, dyslexic pupils progress at around only 5 months per calendar year in reading (ratio gain 0.42) and 3 months in spelling (ratio gain 0.25) (Thomson, 1990, 2001; see also Rack and Walker, 1994). Dr Singleton suggests that in cases of dyslexia the achievement of ratio gains of 1.00 or greater represents substantial progress for these individuals, even though they may still have literacy skills below levels required to access the curriculum effectively.'
Unfortunately the assessment results with regard to reading are confused and contradictory. According to the IEP data, sentence reading assessment was carried out in January 2010 (Salford) which recorded RA 9 years 11 months, CA 9 years, 1 month (+10 months) and in November 2011 (Suffolk) which recorded RA 11 years 0 months, CA 10 years, 11 months (+ 1 month). However at a meeting with the Head/SENCo, we were given a handwritten post-it note with the results of testing in April 2012 (Suffolk), RA 10.02, CA 11.04 (-1 year, 3 months) together with a previously unmentioned and unreported assessment result of testing apparently carried out in October 2011 (Suffolk) RA 9.11, CA 10.10 (-1 year, 0 months).
At least one result is wrong. As the data provided by the school is contradictory it is, therefore, clear that these figures cannot be used to provide any valid measure of progress.
We would suggest that future assessments are 'single word recognition' measures (eg WORD) to enable comparison with data collected by EP, and in order that decoding abilities are properly tested in response to the particular intervention in isolation. Sentence reading tests are a relatively poor, and therefore inappropriate, measure of decoding ability which may be assisted by context and meaning in sentence reading tests. As the objective is to measure the impact of a specific intervention, it is important to use a strong measure in such evaluation.
With regard to spelling, IEP data records assessment in November 2011 (nfer Nelson) of SA 7.06 at CA 10.11 (- 3 years, 6 months) whilst the post-it note recounts September 2011 (nfer Nelson) result of SA 7.05 with CA 10.09 (- 3 years, 5 months) and April 2012 (nfer Nelson) of SA 7.08 with CA 11.4 (- 3 years, 10 months). Thus in a six month period DS1 has made progress of around two months. This represents a ratio gain of 0.3, during the course of a Wave 3 intervention, and is clearly inadequate. This demonstrates that the intervention has been unsuccessful in improving spelling performance. This is commensurate with rate of progress prior to the specific intervention (ratio gain 0.3, July 2010-July 2011) whose effectiveness is being evaluated, and, is similar to that expected by a child receiving no help, rather than the maximum permitted at Action+ level."
Excuse the arseiness - they were pissing me off by this stage.
