Okay, now I'm even more confused. I was starting to think about summer books and enrichment, and I wanted to see what I could find about DD6's reading level. All I could find from her GOAL report was that her WCPM was 129. How does that compare to where she should be?
I couldn't find anything else, so I decided to have her take the DORA test recommended in another thread. Here were her grade-level scores (she is in first):
HFW - 3.83 (ceiling)
WR - 12.83 (ceiling)
PH - 4.83 (ceiling)
PA - 89% (good?)
SP - 1.83 (ha! she aces her spelling tests, but will just spell everything else phonetically)
VO - 4.83
CO - 5.5
So it seems like, other than the spelling, she has the reading skills of a 5th grader. Is that about right? Is this an extreme difference, or is more common than I would think. She did not qualify for GOAL, and it was because her verbal scores were not very high. I realize that the DORA is not supposed to be a very accurate measurement tool, but I kind of was blown away the few times I was looking over her shoulder and saw what and how she was doing. The reading passages seemed WAY above her reading level, but she didn't have any problems and answered most of the questions correctly.
BTW - I had DD8 start to take the test too. If anything, it confirmed with me that DD6's abilities are innate, because DD8 didn't do nearly as well (WR-3.83 and PH-4.5). We don't "practice" this kind of stuff at home.
So the big question is - what kind of books should we look for at the library? How do I know what will be the right level?
