Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Help put scores in perspective?

Hi all--

I have WJ-Cog and WJ III scores for my just turned 7 year old. She's entering 2nd grade in a school that has no gifted ID or support whatsoever. I'm just wondering if a few people could chime in and help me put these scores into perspective. I'm totally thinking myself into circles.

I'm not sure how much I should be pushing against admin or advocating for her. I'm sad after last year--her teacher was really nice, and we met several times, but she wasn't able or willing to differentiate for her. She was in the "highest" reading group--the girls who are reading Junie B Jones books, but DD reads a Junie B Jones book in about 30-45 minutes and is currently reading the first Harry Potter--and the teacher insisted that there are several kids in her grade that are of similar ability. We met several times and the teacher claimed to have spoken to the child study team. They can't do subject advancement for scheduling reasons, allegedly, and teacher argued "Well, I'm still going to have her doing phonics because she'll need it at some point."

I don't know if I should bring up grade level acceleration or not, and I don't even know if her scores merit it. She's already started complaining about going back to school in the fall. She doesn't like math too much, and the rest is "it's aaaaalllll phonics, Mom." She's a very sensitive kid who dwells on the negative, so she doesn't think about the good times she has in school like in art or music or with her friends.

I just don't know what's true/real and what I should push for in terms of placement, etc.

Her Woodcock Johnson Cognitive (from last summer) score and percentile:
GIA 152 >99.9
Verbal Ability 138 99
Thinking Ability 168 >99.9
Cog Efficiency 118 89
Phonemic Awareness 175 >99.9
Working Memory 125 95

Verbal Comp 138
Visual-Auditory 138
Spatial 116
Sound blending 187
Concept formation 155
Visual Matching 116
Numbers reversed 113
Incomplete Words 141
Auditory Working Memory 127
Vis-Aud Delayed 135

Her WJ-III from a few days ago (haven't gotten full report yet) score and grade equivalent:

BRIEF ACHIEVEMENT - 139 (137-142) 4.4

BROAD READING - 131 (129-133) 5.0
BROAD MATH - 126 (121-131) 2.8
BROAD WRITTEN LANG -129 (126-132) 3.8

BRIEF READING - 130 (128-132) 4.7
BASIC READING SKILLS - 128 (127-130) 4.9
BRIEF MATH - 132 (126-137) 3.1
MATH CALC SKILLS - 113 (106-119) 2.2
BRIEF WRITING - 128 (125-131) 4.4
WRITTEN EXPRESSION - 121 (117-125) 3.2

ACADEMIC SKILLS - 135 (133-137) 4.0
ACADEMIC FLUENCY - 132 (127-137) 3.3
ACADEMIC APPS - 128 (125-131) 3.7

My first thought is that, with the scores she got on phonemic awareness and sound blending, that phonics work seems really, really silly. My dd13 was also reading Harry Potter books in late 1st grade and she truly didn't need any phonics instruction at all. I think that K was the only year she got any of that, 1st was horrible with a bunch of sight word drill, and from there on out, she's pretty much had no reading instruction at all and she's continued to make progress in reading.

I do think that her scores warrant consideration of grade acceleration. What I see in those scores is a kid who looks a lot like my dd13: very high verbal abilities, high abstract reasoning abilities, and perhaps slower, deeper processing speed. Rote skills like math calculation are above average but not as stellar as her other skills, but overall a kid who would probably continue to excel with a lot less boredom in a higher grade level.

FWIW, my dd13 skipped a grade and will be entering 10th grade in the fall. She's done very well with the combo of a skip and a bd that put her on the young end already. Do you think that your dd's school would be willing to consider a skip?

Push to skip. They'll wail and gnash their teeth, and somebody's class won't have your daughter boosting their test scores, but they know it is the cheapest way for them to meet your daughter's educational needs.

Your daughter sounds like she might be an FP on the Myers-Briggs.

http://www.educationaloptions.com/resources/resources_rufs_tips.php

@Cricket: That totally sounds like her, the deeper processing part. She'll say something to me totally out of the blue that tells me she's been thinking about something and turning it over and over for literally days.

@Beckee: Wow! I just did a quickie MB test online for her, and she showed up as an ENFP, with very weakly expressed extroversion. (I'm an INFP.)

I would request a skip if your school has no GT program. Get hold of a copy of the Iowa Acceleration Scale and fill it out. It is a very objective survey, and schools are usually receptive to it once they see that it covers all kinds of things, not just test scores.

Find out also who the 2nd and 3rd grade teachers are -- if there's a 2nd grade teacher who really and truly can differentiate, compared with 3rd grade teachers who cannot -- definitely something to consider. Also see if you can find out about the class your DD would skip into. Do those kids have similar scores to hers? What are the kids like?