Ben and Jack age 7 years and 6 months
Ben and Jack have mild learning difficulties and are supported by an outreach Learning Support Team. The team has been using YARC to benchmark pupils’ reading attainment and to track progress. In the majority of cases, YARC has proved both accurate and very useful in supporting pupils and their teachers.
The results from a small number of children who are at the Beginner level (where a lower level passage is not available) have presented problems for the team. Among these are those from assessments given to Ben and Jack.
Ben was given the Beginner Passage from Form A and he made four reading errors. He went on to read the Level 1 Passage and made 15 errors (the maximum upon which standardised scores can be based).
Ben’s SAS for reading accuracy was 76.
Jack read the same passages. He made 4 errors on the first passage but 16 on the second which was not scored.
Jack’s SAS for reading accuracy was 81.
On the face of it this gives Jack, who is marginally the weaker reader, a higher standard age score than Ben. Both scores are in the below average range and indicate that both boys need substantial support. However, in some cases, funding can be attached to assessment outcomes and it is important that this is not jeopardised by what may appear to be anomalous results.
Another way of treating Jack’s scores would be to treat the 16 errors on Level 1 Passage as an Ability Score that is ‘less than 21’. This means that his combined Ability Score is less than 26, converting to a standard age score of ‘less than 76’. In other words, Jack’s Reading Accuracy skills fall below a standard score of 76.
In both cases the boys have significant reading difficulties.
Also, looking at the confidence intervals is helpful in these cases.
Ben’s four errors convert to an Ability Score of 30 with Confidence Intervals between 28 and 32. Likewise, the 15 errors on the Level 1 Passage convert to an Ability Score of 21 with Confidence Intervals between 19 and 23. Taking the extremes of the Confidence Intervals, the combined Ability Score is between 24 and 28 meaning that Ben’s ‘true’ standard age score is between 74 and 79.
Research is underway to test children without stopping after a set number of errors and this should result in more precise results for those at the Beginner level who cannot access Level 1 within the define number of errors.
