Primary School Teachers' Judgements of Reading Achievement

Reading accuracy and comprehension scores (Neale, 1988) from 108 school children aged 6-8 years were compared with their teachers' ( n = 29) predictions of reading achievements. Predictions about relative individual differences in achievements were moderately correlated with accuracy (0.77) and comprehension (0.62) scores, but a majority of absolute judgements were substantially incorrect, with more than one-third in error by 12 months in reading age. There was a highly significant tendency to over-estimate the reading skills of low achieving students.