After the end of year school testing, which is not permitted to go past 2.0 (gr 2, 0 months), I ponied up the $20 and had her do the DORA.

Oh man, that is some USEFUL information. She's finishing K, starting first next year.

Maxed out: high frequency words and phonemic awareness
Mid 6th grade: Word recognition (decoding, basically)

mid 3rd: oral vocab
low 3rd: reading comprehension
high 1st: spelling

ROFLOL!!!! I don't think the K teacher's advice to just let her read whatever she's comfortable reading is really the right thing to do. She will sit down with a 4th grade book and be riveted and enjoy herself. But when I ask her after this test, she is skimming over a lot of words she doesn't know, and just inferring their meaning from context.

It looks like she can decode anything she sees, but that she needs to be doing a whole lot more value added stuff, like talking about words she doesn't know the meaning of, thinking about what she's reading, maybe throw in some spelling rules, too? I showed her the -ing rule yesterday and she got it in under two minutes.

Would you think that we could consider the mechanics of reading a done deal, and that we're dealing with an early third grade reader and use techniques/expectations aimed for them? Any ideas on techniques and expectations for that level?

Opinions, experience, anyone?

I had my kids do DORA last spring/summer. I think I'm going to have them do it again in the next few weeks as I am super curious about where my DD is at. She's just completing K but reads (and seems to fully comprehend) 4th-5th grade books.

I think you can probably consider the mechanics of reading basically a done deal, and expect that she will progress rapidly in reading level if presented with interesting books that expand her exposure to higher-level written vocabulary and concepts in addition to engaging, appropriate, lower-level books that build reading ease and fluency. She might still need some brief instruction in the more obscure phonics rules and some of the more bizarre English spellings, but aside from that, she'll probably just take off. Inferring meaning of unfamiliar words from context is one of the primary ways that readers acquire new vocabulary, so I don't necessarily see the fact that she does this as a bad sign, as long as she is attempting to figure out at least some of the unfamiliar words.

What aculady said. I think reading challenging material with your child, asking as you go about what's happening, motivations of characters, etc. is bound to increase comprehension and a good bonding activity too. You could also try the FlashKids "Reading for the Gifted" workbooks and similar resources.

I'm glad you liked the DORA test. I came away from it feeling that we got our $20 worth. It's obviously not the highest-precision tool out there, but does give some interesting and useful information.

I am so glad I saw this, I just had DD9 do the test and it's been illuminating. So thanks from me too.