Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Reading comprehension

I was posting before about how DS6 had been assessed by his school as reading at a mid year 1 level while a privately administered WIAT abbreviated had him hitting the ceiling with at least a year 3 level. As part of his most recent assessment he was administered the WJ-iii ach test and the report says his reading performance is at about a year 5 level and his comprehension at a year 4 level, which seems consistent with the WIAT results. I still find this gap between the school's assessment and the private assessments to be quite dramatic.

Sometimes I find it hard to get my head around what level DS is actually achieving and what his needs are that I need to be advocating for.

I don't know if my son's experience is relevant but I'll share it.

DS6's reading comprehension level as privately tested is at least 4/5 grade level. The reading comprehension work at school involves writing sentences in response to questions about a passage. He has dysgraphia so this is really challenging. So he might work at grade level when writing is involved and then later work above grade level when oral responses are given. So the grade level work is more a handwriting exercise for him to practice staying on the line, making neat letters, spacing, and punctuation.

I didn't look up your previous post but maybe the school's assessment involved writing?

It could be that he hit the ceiling on their test, which was simply designed to identify anyone who needed early intervention.

It could also be because the nature of reading "comprehension" tests at that grade level often involves regurgitating meaningless details, and is uninteresting.

KJP, I think it was an oral test. They found he had trouble answering closed questions if there was no picture support. His recent assessment did show some relative weaknesses in areas related to quick retrieval of information and unncued retrieval, so maybe the school didn't give him adequate time to respond and the pictures cued faster recall for him.

Dude - perhaps the texts themselves were also dull and he did not attend well.

But whatever the reason, it does make advocating a bit tricky. When some behaviour problems popped up I asked what sort of differentiation was happening, and was it possible he needed a bit more challenge as his assessment showed a year 3 level. That is when his teacher informed me that they tested him at mid year 1 and she didn't understand the reading level from the private assessment. From my own questioning of him with books, I started to think maybe the teacher was right, but he reads long books, and he can tell me stuff about them. He does seem to struggle with summarising a few main points, and I do think it likely he has some retrieval problems.

DD came home from the first day of second grade saying she was level O for guided reading. She was Q at the end of kinder, and last year the teacher said at her level the letters were meaningless distinctions, they'd work on reading comprehension. They never said what level she ever scored at. I also feel DD can struggle to retell, to recall random details when pressed, and sometimes reads so quickly she misses the point. But she also tells me weeks later specific ways Harry Potter differed between the book and movie, practically quoting the details from the book. It is tricky! I'd sincerely like to hear the teacher's insight into it all. But I'd also like to hear what she says to my kid spending a full year in school and going down. Well, it'll give us a clear opening to start a discussion about differentiation after BTSN

I had a similar situation with my first grader last year. The teacher gave him the second grade reading book and once he finished reading it he was started on the third grade reading book. She gave him a second grade reading comprehension test which showed his fluency was at 90%+, but then comprehension was scored at less than 40%. I probed a bit to find out what was going on and it turns out that he bombed the first question which was "What was the author's intention?" My son asked what "intention" meant and the tester marked it as not understanding the book! When there are only a few questions, just getting one question wrong really dropped his score. I would be surprised if an average second grader knows what "intention" means. IMHO the question was poorly formed. It is just frustrating that he got the third grade reading book taken away because of it. I don't think a kid would spend the time to read multiple 200+ page books every single week if they didn't understand them!

In some cases, such as F&P, a teacher may be able to share a comprehension rubric, the results of which are separate from the reading level letter score. Further conversation may lead to the Continuum of Literacy Learning, a book which the teacher may have received included in the professional framework, part of the benchmark assessment system.

Learn how your child is assessed. Ask for examples. Become familiar with their evaluation process(es).

I appreciate that info, indigo! Gives me good questions to help when we meet in a few weeks.