Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment 3rd grade taking NUMATS

Hello, first time post but have been reading for some time.

Question,
Is 3rd grade to early to take this NUMATS explore test.

I know they give it to 3rd graders but I am concerned it is getting to be too much so early for my Son. Or to much for me. LOL

This is his 3rd year scoring 99% on math and 97% on reading on NWEA.
His ISLOT scores have him right up there in the same percentages.
Stanford Binet he took when he was just turning 5 and he scored 133.
He is also in 5th grade math and reading and is in the top group in those classes. Needs to work on organization but who doesn't.
Extremely bright student, self starter, voracious reader
He is very well rounded. Big for his age.
Made the All-Star Team in Baseball this year.
Just some background there.

I guess it is kind of moot since he has been signed up already, just curious what others think....

I bet you will all say, Go for it.

thanks for reading

Hi mecreature. Welcome. From what you've said, I would indeed probably say go for it. What does your son say? Is he interested in taking it? Does he like taking tests?

My DS is also in 3rd grade, and we are also wondering whether to sign him up. I asked our DS if he wanted to, and he thinks that he does. He's not very happy that the test is on a Saturday though! This will be the first really hard test my son has seen, so I'm a bit worried about that.

We're leaning toward signing up our son. When I asked him if he wanted to do the November test or the February one (which are offered in our area), he said he wanted to do the February one because he will have learned more by then.

Sounds like you have a great, well-rounded kiddo!

thanks for responding

I just signed my DD 3rd grader up for the Explore in January. I'm partly excited but also scared for her. Her brother did really well, so should she. Right? She doesn't have much test anxiety so that's a good start. My biggest problem will probably getting her up so early. I better get her a treat for breakfast. She said she wanted to do this. I just felt like sharing. Good luck to the others.

I didn't sign my DD up as a 3rd grader, but she was only 7, and I didn't think she'd be up for it. She's going to test this year as an 8yo 4th grader, but I'm mostly interested in getting a baseline for comparing future scores. (She did the SCAT a month or so ago, and did respectably but not outstandingly compared to other 4th graders. I anticipate she'll do respectably but not outstandingly compared to grademates on EXPLORE, too.)

I don't anticipate any issue with the getting up - the test location is relatively close to us, so we can leave the house just a bit earlier than we'd normally leave for school. But 4 hours is a long time - the SCAT was only an hour, and that totally wiped her. OTOH, most of the EXPLORE works with reading passages, and reading-related things are a strength for her, whereas analogies are not. On the gripping hand, that's a lot of manual bubbling in, and a lot of "I'm an anonymous tiny person in a room full of big people."

We do a breakfast treat and a burst of physical activity to get your brain going and your body settled down.

My big worry is that we'll have an ice storm or other weather making it hard to get there. The sites within reasonable driving distance for us are all February-only sites, so we can't reschedule if something comes up.

My DD9 strenght is reading too. Thanks for mentioning it, that's bit more comfort for me. It's funny as a parent many of us want the challenge for our kids, yet it makes us nervous.

Best of luck with weather and testing.

Not funny at all! My DD is a swimmer, and watching her swim when she's pushing her limits makes me nervous. It's hard to watch your kid do something difficult!

I'm pretty good at looking cheerful and confident (plenty of swim-related practice). But I have a hard time with the setting-expectations part. I can honestly tell DD that the reading-related stuff is likely to be challenging but not impossible or overly frustrating. Much of the math will be material she's never seen, though, and she's not the intutitively mathy kid who can logic it out. So she's likely to be frustrated if she expects to do well, but I don't want to set the self-fulfilling expectation that she won't do well, either. "Some of the math will be material you've never seen before, so just take your best guess and move on, and don't worry about it or get frustrated," I guess.

Sorry, "funny" was a poor choice of words. I hope I didn't offend you.

Oh, no, not at all! (The perils of online communication.) I think I understood what you meant, and was trying to convey that it's not just academic challenge that creates that cognitive dissonance.

Good luck to your DD, too!

We got our package mail yesterday. We didn't open it yet.
My son just kind of shrugs.

Our testing location is pretty close. We are early to bed early to rise people by nature. Good breakfast and some activity is a good idea.

I reminded him again this test is really designed for older kids. Don't sweat it. Move on with your best guess if you are not understanding it. Each question is a clean slate.

I am getting the most resistance trying to get him to use the calculator.
He don't want to. I am trying to get him used to it by checking over his daily homework now.

Math is his strong subject followed real close in reading.

I sure understand the importance of keeping the frustration to a minimum.