Is the Burt reading age test still used?

I guess it marked him as near genius then? ?

Nah, not especially ?

More as I'd expected given that any average value is made up of a range. Or summat.

No, not as far as I know - we now use NFER Nelson reading age test - schools have really moved away from reading tests which just require children to read words and more to tests which test comprehension skills as well as reading - after all, there is no value in being able to read a list of words if you have no idea what they mean. One word on an old test that springs to mind in canary - kids would pronounce it as can-ary!

Thanks marmite, I'll have a look at that one. I'm just curious as to what he "should" be able to do as TBH I'm stunned by how much he's already learnt.

What age is he Iris? I teach little ones (4 and 5) so can let you know if what he can do is 'normal' (obviously there's no norm - just different stages of development!). Im constantly surprised and amazed by how much my class can do!!

He'll be 5 in January. He's brought home a piece of work he did at school where they have to read 2 sentences and tick which one makes sense-"the dog is big/the dog is bag". He got them all right which impressed me. I think they are doing a lot of literacy though, he has a reading book every day and 2 word boxes a week.

I think he's the bright end of normal but not a genius.

Yes, I would say my higher ability children could most definitely do that. Lower ability would struggle a bit more, so he would be up there with the brighter ones. In fact just yesterday I drew a picture of a cat sitting on a mat and the children each wrote "a cat on a mat" all by themselves using their phonic knowledge. I was so proud!!

I think it's the spelling which impresses me. THree months ago it was a hell of a job to get him to write "Sam". Yesterday I wrote "I am not a cat or a dog" and he read it. He then wrote "Sam is a bat" all by himself. Obviously he's not a bat but he spelt it all out. This phonics stuff really seems to work well.

I admire you reception teachers so much, you must have so much patience.

I just took a look at the Burt test because I've never used it. Looking at the words there I would say my higher ability children could read about 20 of those words using their phonics - so an age of 6.2! Don't know an awful lot about reading tests because we don't do them so young, but I imagine they were constructed when children were taught sight words, rather than decoding strategies. Ability to read a list of words doesn't indicate ability to read! But that's not aimed at you (just me thinking out loud) because your little one seems to be understanding what he is reading.

Sorry, I posted while you were posting. The spelling and reading is amazing using phonics! We only changed our strategy this year and I've seen massive improvements. They really love being able to sound out and spell. You can get some lovely little phonic reading books if you wanted to extend his reading, but with one book a night I'd say he is getting plenty. I know my class can't get enough of reading. You do have to have plenty of patience but you see the moment something clicks with a child - that moment is priceless and makes all the waiting and encouraging worthwhile. I just love my job!!

You sound really passionate about it. The burt thing put him at 6.4 which seems a bit high to me, by 6 I'd expect him to be reading way more than 20 of those words. I didn't think he'd take to phonics as he was more of a word recogniser at nursery but it seems to have clicked with him really well. They're doing digraphs at the moment, he even tells me that "ea" etc are digraphs. I find the way he's developing fascinating at the moment. I'd like that side of your job but I'd be worried about getting it wrong and none of them learning anything.

Now if he could just learn to do his buttons up we'd be getting somewhere ?

You know, sometimes it feels like they learn in spite of you, I'm convinced half of them don't need me! ? But for some of them whose parents do absolutely nothing you get so much satisfaction that every single thing they know you taught it to them. But then it gets me down because they would know so much more if only their parents cared. sigh.

Don't worry too much about the buttons, his fine motor skills maybe need to develop a bit more before he can manage them - lots of grip activities will help, like rolling dough between a pincer grip, using tweezers to lift small objects, tearing strips of paper using his fingers etc. Some in my class still can't get their arms into the sleeves of their coat (and it seems to be a boy thing!) ?

I'm off to bed now. One last question, have you got loads more boys than girls this year? In his class there are 6 girls and 14 boys, the other reception class is 6 girls and 13 boys. Friends at other schools have 6 girls and 10 boys (but they'll have a january intake). I don't know if it's a national thing or just in our area. Bit wierd though.

I'm in NI. Our boy / girl ratio is pretty even at the minute. Yours sounds boy-overloaded! I'm off to bed now too! Night!!