Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Interpreting Terranova test results

I was wondering if anyone here has experience interpreting the Terranova test results. Got them back from the 2nd grade teacher (who said that they normally don't show them to parents--why I don't know, and seems counter productive to me) and am looking for some perspective. I'd like to know in particular what the frame of reference for the scale score is. Here are the numbers we've been given for DS8:

Read: National Percentile- 93%, National Stanine-8, Grade Equivalent-7.1, National Curve Equivalent-82, Scale Score-664, Number Objectives Mastered-5/5
Math: National Percenile- 99%, National Stanine-9, Grade Equivalent-11.6, Normal Curve Equivalent-99, Scale Score-720, Number Objectives Mastered-8/8

Does anyone have any insight? I'd appreciate anything anyone has to say.

These are significantly above average scores. Here is a fairly good explanation of the Terranova scoring: Terranova test interpretation


Note that in instances where the child has mastered material that is significantly above their age norm, the child's age may be "adjusted" up and scores reported may show percentile norms from the lowest age that was included in the norms for that material.

Thanks, Aculady. I appreciate you taking the time to post that for me.

It does help, but still doesn't give the kind of detail I was hoping for. (That's me, wanting the moon AND the stars again! ) I guess I'm wanting a frame of reference for the scale scores in particular... like 720 out of what? How many questions?

Anyone know?

I'm wondering if I should be talking to the counselor at school to see what can be done for DS. (He'll be going into 3rd, so we'll get a new counselor). I know he's bored at school, and says he isn't learning anything there. We do supplemental things at home, but I hate to think of all that time at school being wasted. The school did a KBit last year and it came up with 132 vocab, 145 matrices and IQ composite 144. But nothing happened after that, really, from the school. Private school isn't a financial option for us, either.

Well, my dds took the Terra Novas for a few years at two different schools. The schools were also reluctant to show the scores to the parents. So one year we would get one page of information, the next year, we might get an additional page, the next year maybe only a xerox of one side of the page. So I guess my first question to you is what page(s) did you get?

One of the pages I have shows Performance by Content Area -- broad performance on reading, language, Math, Total, Science and Social Studies. The next page is a different home report with five subtests that measure cognitive ability. So this is just a little like iq testing and the content area report is more like WJII; One year the school got fancy and hand wrote the "anticipated score" the child would have gotten on the achievement section, based on their cognitive score. I don't think they were supposed to do that....

The next school provided us with an Individual Profile report with percentiles/GE/percentile range for 14 different subtests & composites.

Finally, they provided another page with 10 subtests, each with 3to 8 sub-sub tests. This is where you can see how your child did on geometry versus problem solving or editing skills versus sentence structure. Everything is done in percentiles, and OPI - "an estimate of the number of items that a student could be expected to answer if there had been 100 questions.."

If you could get the reports, you would be able to see if the 99 had a little asterix with it indicating it to be a maximum score. I'm guessing it was.

A little explanation that came with the reports:

"A percentile rank refers to the percentage of students in the norm group who fall below a particular point, not the percentage of items answered correctly. also note that a scale of percentile ranks in not composed of equal measuring units. A given difference between percentile ranks is larger in terms of scale score units near the ends of the range than it is near the middle. For example, the difference in scale scores between percentile ranks 90 and 95 is much greater than the difference between percentile ranks of 50 and 55.

I agree with Dottie about the GE numbers. The report bends over backwards trying to explain how to not misinterpret them, without explaining how they are at all useful. I don't know how it is helpful to know that a child performed as well as an average 11th grader would have performed on the same 2nd grade test. The information that came with ours suggested that parents not be given GE's because of their confusing nature.

So...long post. I know you want more information, but I'm not sure you'll get it from the Terra Novas. The cognitive stuff might be helpful/interesting, if you can get it from the teacher or school. I don't know anything about the Kbit, sorry, but it sounds like it might be more persuasive.

Your child's scores, nonetheless, are very high. My dd had scores not too different from these, and the school district suggested that we have her tested with the WISC, etc.

How is it that you got the scores from the teacher? If she only gave it to your family, maybe she was trying to tell you something?

apologies if I am repeating information in Aculady's link; I couldn't get it to open..

Thanks Herenow,
You certainly got a lot more information than I did! I literally got the numbers handwritten on a post-it note, and that only because I volunteered in the teacher's classroom during the year. So truly, ANYTHING is more than I had!
I agree with both of you about the 11.6. I know my DS pretty well, and while I have learned not to underestimate him, saying that he is equal to a Jr in HS is ridiculous. Of course, last year they told me they gave him a reading assesment and that he had gotten %100 on the 8th grade level (the highest they could go). When I saw the test, it was really just him reading out loud 20 words they said represented each grade level, then at the end of those reading a short article (3-4 small paragraphs) and answering 5 questions. While I was proud of him, it didn't quite sit right with me.
We had a WISC-IV done a bit back... I posted a question asking for help getting a GAI if you'd like to see it.

What was the end result with your school? Have they done things to help your son?

Yup. Must have truncated the link when copy-pasting. Thanks!

I'm feeling a little like the person who joins a conversation at a party and ends up making it all about herself. But I will shamelessly continue, as I am sort of grasping at something I don't really understand.

In looking at the Terra Nova reports for my older dd, I realized last night that I have two consecutive years of Cognitive data for her, from elementary school. Dottie's comment that the this piece of the Terra Nova is similar to the Cogat and Olsat is making me really think about her scores and their variability. My understanding is that this is cognitive "horsepower" kind of testing, so scores would theoretically be pretty stable year to year?

She is inconsistent. One year she had a 99/max score in Analogies, and the next year she had a 76. Quantitative Reasoning was 85 followed the next year by a 41. And then Verbal Reasoning at 76 was followed the next year by 93.

Can I make any kind of conclusion from these scores? Is this another piece of the possible LD puzzle?

No Worries, Herenow... we're all here to learn!

Wow, there are so many tests out there. I don't have any experience with Cogat or Olsat or so many others that I see people asking about. (I suspect it's because my state is known for cutting corners, and doesn't administer many)

Hope you get the clarification you're looking for!

Hi Dottie. The tests were from 3rd and 4th grade.
Has anyone else seen this kind of year to year variability in the cognitive portion of standardized testing?

We have although it wasn't standardized school testing. Dd10 has only taken the CogAT once b/c it is her school district's opinion that those scores are fairly set in stone from 3rd grade and won't change. She did take the WISC twice, though one year apart (end of 2nd & end of 3rd). Her VCI was pretty consistent (99.7th and 99th), but her PRI tanked on the second testing (99th to 75th). In her instance I attribute it to two things: her 3rd grade teacher destroyed her confidence and told both her and me repeatedly that dd wasn't very bright and her prior IQ scores were inaccurate, and she has ADD and significant anxiety.

The psych we saw last year said that the second IQ scores didn't make sense b/c she usually saw things like BD go up significantly when tested just one year apart (hers went down significantly) and b/c dd's WIAT and GORT scores done @ the same time as the second testing we significantly higher than expected if the second set of IQ data was accurate. Granted, she was still MG on the second set of IQ data and it more than qualifies as "gifted" per local guidelines (which are 95th percentile in any one area), but she had 19s and 8s and much too high WIAT data for the composite #.

Could be part of the 2e puzzle for both us and you. Dd's MAPS scores (achievement) and CSAP (local NCLB achievement tests) are all over the place as well here.