The monthly reading check is being switched on in stages. If there is no Monthly reading check card on your child's progress page, it is not on for your family yet, and nothing described here happens.
What it is
Once a month, your child reads three short passages out loud to Pip, one minute each. The passages are written for their grade and are never used anywhere else in TaleTykes, so your child has never seen them before. Everything else your child reads here is practiced: their own books, read more than once. This is the one reading that shows how they read something new, so a line drawn month to month is about their reading and not about how well they know their books.
It is given the way schools give this kind of check: one minute a passage, three passages, and the middle result of the three. There is no help with words, nothing is read to them first and there are no pictures. If your child waits on a word for three seconds, that word counts as not read, which is the usual rule. If the computer listening was unsure what your child said, the word counts as read.
What your child sees
Pip asks whether they will read today, and says it is three short stories with no help this time. There is no timer on the screen, no count and nothing highlighted as they go. The recording stops by itself after a minute. At the end Pip says thank you. Your child is never told how they did.
They can say "Not now" at any point. A check they leave in the middle waits for them for a week, with the same passages.
When it comes round
- It is offered on your child's home, or inside Today's reading when that is on, about once a month.
- You can start one yourself from the progress page. It then waits on your child's home.
- Checks are always at least three weeks apart, even if you start one, because a check repeated sooner measures the last check.
- For children aged two to five, it is only offered once you have said which grade they are in.
What you see
On your child's progress page:
- Words correct a minute and accuracy, the middle of the three passages, for each month, as a small chart.
- The change since the month before.
- Which grade the passages were for. It comes from your child's class if they have one; otherwise you can choose kindergarten to grade 3 on the card, and until you do, we go by their age group.
The figures are machine-estimated: a computer listening counts them, and it mishears children more often than a person would. Treat them as a way to see change over months, not as a grade or a reading age.
We do not compare your child with other children yet. Published figures for what is typical at each grade (Hasbrouck and Tindal, 2017) will only be shown once we have checked, against people scoring the same readings by hand, that our counts agree with theirs. When that happens, you will see one of four words (well below, below, around or above typical for the grade and time of year), never a percentile, and only for a grade your child's class or you gave.
The weekly summary email mentions that a check was done. It does not include the figures.
Made-up words
When it is switched on, there is also a one-minute check of made-up words, like "tib" or "shub", built only from the sounds your child has been taught. A made-up word cannot be remembered, only sounded out, so it shows how well your child sounds out. You see how many sounds and whole words they read.
What we keep
For each check: the grade and time of year, which passages were read, and for each passage the counts (words tried, words correct, words counted wrong, seconds read). We never keep the recording or what your child said. The recording goes to the listening service and is gone when that minute is counted.
Checks are kept while your child's reader is on your account, like their other reading figures, and are deleted with the reader. They are in the download of your data. Nothing is kept until the updated privacy notice that describes the check is in force and you have agreed to it.
For a child whose school added them, their teacher sees the same line on the student page.