Clearly, we need to know what is being tested and what the results show, and what the results tell us from one year to the next - and so on. We also need to know what results don't show.
However, when I have looked closely at some very formal-sounding, well-used reading tests, I have sometimes been quite shocked at their contents regarding their fit-for-purposeness and the nature of the content.
What we can always gain from using the same tests in different settings and from one year to the next is a comparison of results - but these results can nevertheless be misleading if we don't constantly examine the content of the tests relative to the prevailing issues around reading.
Singleton made some very interesting observations and an interpretation about the content of the BAS-II tests below:
Food for thought!Dr. Singleton was a key contributor to the now archived, DCSF-commissioned, Rose report on Dyslexia (Rose. 2009). On the subject of Reading Recovery, he said, ''Only 12%–15% of Reading Recovery children completing their programmes between 2003 and 2007 achieved a Level 2a or above in Key Stage 1 Reading National Curriculum assessments, the level at which children can tackle unfamiliar words and have therefore developed a self-sustaining word recognition system'' (Singleton 2009 p11) Singleton also pointed out that Reading Recovery measured children's progress using the BAS-II word reading test; 6yrs.7mths ''was the average reading age of only those children who responded well to Reading Recovery''. Singleton added that a child can achieve a RA of 6.7 on BAS-II ''with knowledge of only a few words'' as ''only 21 words on the test have to be read correctly, which can be easily achieved by a child who has memorised some very high frequency common words (e.g.the,up,you,at,said,out) and knows and can use single letter sounds, plus the simple digraphs 'sh' and 'th'' (Singleton p117)