I have not tested my kid (she’s 7). I did buy a book from McGraw Hill Spectrum Test Prep, Grade 1. The cover says: Practice for State Tests and Proficiency Tests, test-taking strategies and techniques, actual test questions in reading, lang arts, writing, basic skills and math. We haven’t used it yet.

Here’s a few links:
Star Reading Software
Hoagie’s Gifted shows how grade level is determined for books but it may have some helpful info.
Zork & Norkley Assessment Guide will help you determine if a student is acquiring the basic skills necessary for reading.
Reading A-Z leveled books for guided reading may also be helpful.
KidSource has an article Testing For Assessment of a Reading Problem
Book “Reading for Understanding“

Some people use this software to check level. It is most likely only available through eBay.

This is from Sesame Family Newsletter: If you’re interested in understanding how children learn to read, Sesame Workshop has a wide range of articles that explain the process and how you can support it.

No-rush Reading (This is a good one) Your child will learn how, and you can help.
Raising a Reader Pass on the love of reading.
Reading Through the Years Raise an eager reader.
Reading (Still) Rules Make reading play a bigger role in your kid’s life.
The Good News About Reading What you do now can help your child avoid problems later.
Words All Around Recognizing signs and labels is an important step on a child’s road to reading.
Bilingual Children are Early Readers Bilingual youngsters may have an edge over monolingual children when it comes to learning how to read.

Sesame Workshop puts out a lot of nice articles. Sign up for their newsletter. And while this is slightly ot, play their 35th Anniversary Trivia Game.

My kid is 7 so I am not really concerned about her reading level yet. What is it the statistics say — something like girls read sooner than boys. I figure that since we homeschool – we don’t fall into any statistic area anyway. (I also don’t believe in “normal” LOL ) We’re visiting Grandpa today and she read the first chapter in the Beatrix Potter collection – the Peter Rabbit one. Then she did a homemade GeoSafari card based on Peter Rabbit. She only needed help with some words in the story. Mr, Mrs, McGregor and a few others. I think she reads well (but then I’m her mom, too). She certainly likes to write books.

She will try to sound out words that she doesn’t know but does get a bit frustrated when there’s a word she doesn’t know. I hope you get the idea of where we are at and how I feel about the reading level. It can be rough on us as parents because we want our children to do well, even excel. I have a hard time letting her do things her way sometimes. I try to be objective but am subjective many times.