My daughter has recently done some tests at school ( I already have a 13 year old daughter with dyslexia/dyscalculia). The following tests have been done with these results:-
Salford Sentence Reading Test (my daughter is 8 yrs 11 months) the result was 7 yrs 4 mths
Neale II Reading Ability Accuracy 7 yrs 6mths and Comprehension 8yrs 7mths
Schonell SpellingTests 7 yrs 9 mths
British Picture Vocabulary Scale (short form) 55” percentile
Raven’s Progressive Matrices 90th percentile
Auditory recall Digits forward 9 Digits reversed 3
Visual recall 5/6 pictures
Can anyone :P explain the results to me as the special needs teacher doesnt know how to explain it to me :?
Re: Special Needs Tests - United Kingdom
I don’t know the child, haven’t seen the test results, and don’t know the rest of the situation. So I can’t give a diagnosis and anything I say has to be taken as a first try, not written in stone.
Here is what I would summarize from seeing those scores:
The reading and spelling scores are all consistent with each other, so this is probably a good estimate of her achievement.
She appears to be about a year behind average in reading.
Whether this is good or bad depends on where you started. If she was supposedly going along fine until you yelled for testing, this is a sign of a problem and should be addressed soon. On the other hand, if she had serious problems learning and is already in effective programs, then she may be making good progress.
From what I have read here from other parents and teachers, the UK is using a goulash reading approach — throw in everything in the kitchen and see what boils up. A student like this needs a research-based reading approach with systematic synthetic phonics, not just more library time or story writing or a volunteer to read with her or all the other fun and games that are often suggested. She is at the stage where many students stall for years and sometimes for life, the equivalent of US Grade 2.5 to 3.0, a stage where memorize-and-guess cannot keep up any more and if you don’t have the skills, you are stuck. So yes, this is evidence to fight for a research-based program with systematic skills teaching.
55th percentile in vocabulary is dead-on average and suggests that her language development is normal. However if there are *other* signs of problems in language, more in-depth testing would be a good idea. One simple vocabulary test is not enough to make a diagnosis on.
Auditory recall of 9 digits — I believe this is a very high score for an eight-year-old — someone else who knows more about testing can tell you how high.
Having average language skills and delayed reading skills is another basis to fight for an effective reading program.
90th percentile in anything is a very high score and shows that the child may have untapped talents. I believe (don’t know the test in person) that Raven is a test of logic and applies to math learning. Combine this with good digit recall and this suggests a strength. This child may have some areas of giftedness that have not been able to develop because of the slow reading development. Definitely go for a good reading program, and see what you can do to get her more stimulation and challenge in science and math.
Janice,
I’m so sorry your special education teacher lacks communication skills. That must make you feel confortable!
I’m not good at reports. I just wanted to suggest you repost this in the teacher or parents forum. This particular forum gets very little traffic and your post might be missed.
Good luck,
Barb