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.
