Originally Posted by Kerry
She did her reading diagnostic test last week and we got an email that the teacher would like to discuss it with us, so we'll see what she has to say when we meet.

Well, DH had the meeting about the reading test results and I am more frustrated now than before! frown Maybe I'm not understanding the test, or what they were actually looking for in this test. We thought it was to see what her reading comprehension level is, but it appears that they were really testing her oral reading fluency (speed, number of missed pauses for punctuation, mispronouncing words, etc.). If someone knows more about this test, please jump in and explain it to me.

She took the DRA2 K-3 test.
On the fiction reading part she had 2 miscues not self-corrected, and ignored punctuation. Her oral reading rate came out to be 192 wpm.
These numbers some how say that her independent reading comprehension is GE 4.5, Level O, Lexile 600-675.

On the non-fiction part, she had either figured out or had been told to be more careful about punctuation because she took exaggerated pauses, and slowed down her reading speed.
She had 4 miscues not self-corrected, 2 self-corrected, she had omissions, insertions and made substitutions for visually similar words (like the and their)(don't know how many, it didn't say). Her oral reading speed was 120 WPM.
These numbers lead to a GE of 3.8, Level O and a Lexile of 575-600.

According to DH, the part she scored the lowest on required her to write a paragraph about the important information from the nonfiction reading. She apparently thought all of the information was important because she knew little about wolves before reading this passage. smirk

The thing that I find most frustrating is that 2 years ago her reading level was diagnosed as being at 5th grade. How could she have gone down so far in 2 years? Also, based on what she can tell us about books she reads at home, her comprehension level is much higher than a 3rd grader. (If she tests to be at grade level, I can't imagine what level most of her classmates would test to be at, based on what we know about them!)

It seems like one of the things they will be working on based on these results is her writing of summaries, and improving her written ability to explain what she read. I know she, and all kids, need help with this, the thing that makes me angry is that we have not seen 1 writing piece from school that has any teacher comments on it about what needs improvement and what is good! It is almost December, and the teacher says she is working on writing a lot in class, but we have no indication of anything being done. ARGH!

Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated.