About Testing For Reading Level

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.
Reading A-Z leveled books for guided reading may also be helpful.
Book “Reading for Understanding”

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.
Sesame Workshop article search for more reading topics.
Sesame Workshop puts out a lot of nice articles. Sign up for their newsletter.

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.