Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Can we determine reading level at home?

I know reading level is complicated, involving comprehension as well as decoding and sight words. But I'm trying to figure out if I should say something to my daughter's teacher.

At school she's reading level 1.6 AR books, at home she's reading 2/3/4. This morning she read 47 pages of a book that is apparently 4.8. She is really obsessed with a series that has books from level 2.5, and I didn't realize this one was so difficult. How do I tell if it's too difficult for her? Does it matter if it's too hard if she's that motivated?

I do ask questions about what happened in the story, and I've done the thing where you count how many words they stumble over. Is there a way I can make sure of what level she's reading at before I gently nudge the teacher to give her harder books at school?

(yes, this is the child who wasn't reading at all in November!)


PS: what makes a book harder? The one she read this morning doesn't look any harder than any of the others.

We tried the DORA test. I believe that in some respects it may report higher than actual numbers for gifted kids, but that's not necessarily a bad thing for your intended purpose. I believe it was $20. It generates a nice, professional-looking PDF report that you can give to the teacher.

The AR leveling system rewards kids with a big vocabulary, but doesn't reward the ability to understand complex / mature concepts. It's a pretty mechanical calculation based on word length / sentence length.

I personally figure that any book DD chooses to read (and actually does read) is an appropriate level. There are some lower-level books she hasn't finished because of content (boring or too mature), and some really high-level stuff she has pushed through on sheer force of will (a 7th grade book on seals she picked out in first grade, because the "over 6th grade" indicator is almost the same color as the "first grade" indicator in the school library).

Most of the books she's interested in now are 5th grade level; it's hard to find 6th-grade-and-higher books that are interesting for a nearly-8yo.

If your DD's choices are limited at school, or she perceives that they're limited, no harm in talking to the teacher now. If her choices are unlimited, or she's not bothered by the limitation, probably no point in making a deal about it so close to the end of the school year.

I had EJ (5y5m) take the DORA this morning. It has his vocabulary at a mid 5th grade level and recommended LGL Edge reading. (I wish I could copy and paste a pdf document!)


summary

"EJ was found to be above grade level in semantic and graphophonic portions of this test. The semantic area of the test addresses EJ's ability to understand what he reads. The graphophonic portion of the assessment deals with the ways in which individual words are read or written. EJ's above grade level scores on all or most subtests indicate EJ s a strong reader who can decode well and is able to access many strategies which aid in his comprehension."

The only thing I didnt find was a reading level. If anyone knows where it is buried in here I would appreciate the help!

Thanks
Sheila

eta the LGL Edge series are recommended for grades 5 and up. That being said.. he is no where near a 5th grade reader. His vocabulary is huge. Dora works like MAP as it gets progressively harder when they get the correct answer

Thank you everyone, I'll have a look at the DORA.

lucounu, I won't be giving the teacher results, it's more for my self-confidence in talking to her about it IYKWIM.

I suspect she's has higher vocabulary and understanding than her mechanical reading ability. She's been like a car revving in neutral for ages, building really impressive pre-literacy skills.
They cluster, and the K teachers and the 1st teachers sit down together to decide on classes. And I want to hit the ground running next year since we lost pretty much all of this year in trying to go gently with them. I figure that's most likely to work if the report from this teacher says she's reading at an accurate level than if it's an underestimation. Because she is going to progress crazy fast over the summer.

FWIW, dd12's 2nd grade teacher wasn't a fan of the DORA. She said that she'd seen some really out of whack #s come out of it. I believe that Dd's vocab came out around 6th grade equivalency on it in 2nd grade. She took the WISC that same year with a 99th percentile vocab score and the ITBS shortly thereafter with another 99th percentile vocab score. I'm not sure if those line up.

I had another mom tell me (not sure if she was telling the truth) that her dd's DORA vocab came out at 12th grade in around 2nd grade. Her dd was helping my dd study for a spelling test the next year by reading the words from dd's spelling test to her (I was cooking nearby at the time). Every other word she couldn't read and asked me what it was and then asked what it meant when I told her. It was a 4th grade spelling list and not hard vocab IMHO.

I've had no other personal experience with the DORA other than the one teacher tell me that the #s didn't line up with other measures, so I could be off based on these few anecdotes.

I'd be as inclined as anything if it was just for my personal info to take a look at what dc could read comfortably and then look at the # on the book cover (3.5, 5.9, etc.) to gauge the reading level. Or I'd look up books s/he was reading in the lexile search or find books in a lexile search or by another means that I thought s/he could read and then read them together to see how many questions dc had about vocab in particular if that was an area I felt her to be more capable in.

Good points Cricket. I think the vocab score was correct.. that being said.. my son is an emerging reader. Just because he knows what the word means doesn't mean he is a superb reader. I would never put him into the 5th grade reading program they suggested.

To be clear, I wasn't questioning your dc's vocab score, frannieandejsmom ! If it lines up with where you feel his vocab to be, I'd be comfortable in your shoes saying that it was accurate. In my dd's instance, it did seem like a lowball estimate, though, and in the other child whose mom told me the score was so high's instance, I would be surprised if the vocab was actually that high. I could, of course, be wrong in gauging a kid's vocab on speaking with the child and him/her not knowing the meaning of spelling words.

I know you weren't . I was just adding that it recommended the higher level reading for him and he is no where ready for it.

I agree with this. I figure if DD chooses it herself and reads the entire thing (unless it's very short), it's at the right level--or at least, it's not way too hard. DD usually chooses books in the 3rd-6th range, but there's a series rated 7th/8th that she loves and has pushed through (FTR, I think it's rated too high).


Yes, we find our DD is staying in about this range as well. Fortunately, there are tons of good books at this level.