BCS70 – Child of CM (Multi-Age) – British Abilities Scales II (BAS II) School Aged Exercises: Word Reading

The 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70) assessed the children of cohort members (CMs) during the study’s age 34 sweep using the Word Reading measure from the British Ability Scales (BAS).

When the CM was aged 34, child assessments were conducted with the cohort member’s children. Each of the CM’s eligible children were asked to complete three exercises designed to measure a range of verbal and numerical abilities. Although dependent on the child’s age and abilities, each set of exercises was expected to take an average of 20 minutes to complete.

The BAS Word Reading measure was administered as part of a set of ‘School Age’ exercises (for children aged between 6 and 16 years and 11 months). Details on this measure and the data collected are outlined in the table below.

Year of data collection:	2004
Domain:	School knowledge – reading (achievement scale)
Measures:	Word decoding ability: Recognition and oral reading of single words (lack of contextual clues):
	Recognition of printed words
	Visual and auditory working memory
	Skills in word analysis without additional contextual clues
	Vocabulary knowledge
	Low scores:
	Poor visual memory
	Short term auditory memory for sequences
	Poor skills in phonological segmentation of words into component sounds or syllables
	Poor skills in sound blending
	Poor auditory discrimination
CHC:	Gc (Crystallised ability)
	Grw (Reading/Writing)
CLOSER Source:	Not currently available in CLOSER Discovery
Administrative method:	The child reads aloud a series of words presented on a card.
Procedure:	The assessment consisted of 90 words in total. The words were organised into 9 blocks of 10 words in ascending order of difficulty. The child was asked to read each word in a block out loud to the interviewer. The number of blocks of words the child was asked to attempt to read was dependent on the child’s performance during the assessment. This assessment was designed to be used with children aged from 5 years to 17 years and 11 months.
Link to questionnaire:	No link to the questionnaire, but user guide available: https://cls.ucl.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/BCS70-2004-Guide-to-Child-Assessments.pdf (opens in new tab)
Scoring:	90 maximum possible score, 1 for each correctly pronounced word.
Item-level variable(s):	baswr01 – baswr90
Total score/derived variable(s):	baswrR (raw score)
	baswrA (ability and age adjusted)
Age of child (months):	Mean = 117.71, SD = 32.97, Range = 72 – 203
Descriptives:		baswrR (raw score)	baswrA (ability and age adjusted)
	N	2,248	2,248
	Range	0 – 83	10 – 222
	Mean	38.84	133.3
	SD	15.38	37.86
		(click image to enlarge)	(click image to enlarge)
Other sweep and/or cohort:	MCS – Age 7 – BAS II Word Reading
	NSHD – Age 8 – Word Reading similar National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) task)
	NSHD – Age 11 – Word Reading (similar National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) task)
Source:	Elliott, C. D., Smith, P., & McCulloch, K. (1996). British Ability Scales Second Edition (BAS II). Administration and Scoring Manual. London: Nelson.
	Elliott, C. D., Smith, P., & McCulloch, K. (1997). British Ability Scales Second Edition (BAS II). Technical Manual. London: Nelson.
Technical resources:	Parsons, S., Bynner, J., & Foudouli, V. (2005). Measuring basic skills for longitudinal study: the design and development of instruments for use with cohort members in the age 34 follow-up in the 1970 British Cohort Study. NRDC: London (Link opens in a new tab)
	Parsons, S. (2006). British Cohort Study 2004 Follow up: Guide to Child Assessment Data, CLS Working Paper. (Link opens in a new tab)
Example articles:	Cooksey, E., Joshi, H., & Verropoulou, G. (2009). Does mothers’ employment affect children’s development? Evidence from the children of the British 1970 Birth Cohort and the American NLSY79. Longitudinal and Life Course Studies, 1(1), 95-115.
	Crawford, C., Goodman, A., & Joyce, R. (2011). Explaining the socio-economic gradient in child outcomes: the inter-generational transmission of cognitive skills. Longitudinal and Life Course Studies, 2(1), 77-93.