Reading Level Test for Kids
How to Test Reading Level and Reading Age (Part 3)
This 3rd and final part is written a few months after the previous 2 parts, and much progress has been made in our children's reading abilities since. In the previous two articles, we discussed two commonly used reading assessment tests: 1) the Burt Reading Test, which tests a child's reading age and reading grade level, and 2) the Word Reading Test, which tests for a child's reading grade level equivalent. In this 3rd and final part, we will further discuss our results with the Word Reading Test several months later, and we will also discuss a third reading test called "Wide Range Reading Test for Kindergarten to College".
First, let's discuss our results with the Word Reading Test for children several months later, when Raine was 4 years and 3 months old. Previously, she had scored a GE level of 3. This time, to make sure she did not benefit from previous test, we used Form B that offers a completely different set of words than Form A, which we used previously. We started of with List A words (GE1-2) of From B, which are:
- big
- make
- they
- walk
- today
- play
- know
- his
- cash
- was
List B words (GE 3-4) are:
- tuesday
- window
- strong
- office
- amount
- dollar
- program
- success
- together
- common
List C words (GE 5-6) are:
- actual
- position
- benefit
- organize
- employment
- management
- occupation
- deposit
- intention
- instruction
This time, Raine made no mistakes with words from List A and List B. With List C, she scored 7/10, and the three words she could not read or made mistakes reading were 1) position, 2) organize, and 3) occupation. With 7 correct from list C, this puts her at a grade level equivalent of 5 (9 correct is needed for GE6). This result is quite different from the Burt Reading test which puts her at a 70th percentile of grade 3 reading level.
Wide Range Reading Test
Finally, there is also a 3rd assessment to test reading level for children, and this is the "Wide Range Reading Test for Kindergarten to College" made available from donpotter.net (link opens PDF file in a new window). Similar to the Burt and WRT tests, this Wide Range Reading Test also uses an extensive set of words to test the reading grade level of a child or adult. The words start simple, and progress to more complicated words. The child reads the words until he or she makes 7 consecutive failures. In total, there are 19 rows of words. Each row contains a "raw score" which roughly approximates a child's reading grade level. For example, the first row are just several alphabet letters, which is for kindergarten children. Far down the page, row 17 and 18 contains words such as "idiosyncrasy" and "succinct" which is approximately for grade 12 students.
For our daughter, Raine, at 4 years 3 months old, she read the first 5 rows of words without making any mistakes, and the raw score for row #5 is 43, which equates to grade 4, 3rd month reading level. With row #6, she was able to read 4 of the 7 words. Here are the words in row #6:
quality - escape - urge - collapse - grieve - abuse - residence 50
The 3 words she could not read were "urge", "collapse", and "grieve". We stopped here and decided to use 43 as her score instead of 50.
If you take the reading level results of all three tests, you get an accurate assessment of your child's reading age and reading level. For Raine, her results were:
- Burt Reading Test - 70th percentile of grade 3 (reading age of 9)
- Word Reading Test (WRT) - Grade Equivalent Level 5
- Wide Range Test - Grade 4, 3rd month
Whether our daughter's reading level is grade 3 or grade 5 isn't important. What is important, however, is that at just 4.3 years old, she has achieved superb reading abilities that's years ahead of what's expected of her age. In a world where 38% of all grade 4 students cannot achieve basic literacy levels as defined by the NAEP (national assessment of educational progress), it's quite a feat for a small preschooler to achieve such advanced reading skills. Even more astonishing is the fact that all it takes is 10 to 15 minutes a day to teach a young child to read. Discover how...
Click here to discover a simple, powerful, and extremely effective program that will teach your child to read in just 12 weeks. (The exact same program we used to teach our children to read.)
