Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Have test results - had meeting with school pg3

Her IQ scores are qualifying. Now you just need those achievement scores or a strong portfolio.

@Master of None

Lots of good info and ideas! You are right that it is important to listen, apparently I haven't been doing that. She had mentioned the grade skip prior to wisc testing and I, honestly, didn't take her seriously b/c I just didn't see her as that gifted. I'm feeling bad about that now. I'm definitely going to listen more and ask her some of the questions you suggested to get a feel for why she feels that way.

Since school has restarted I did ask her why she doesn't want to go and she mostly says it's too long, her words "It's 7 hours mom!" and then at times she will say it's not interesting or she says she'd rather be at her desk more than circle time. She says she wants to do more art. She also said that she would like to do a report and her topic would be on how dvds are made with tiny little bumps that are smaller than the tip of a hair. LOL She said she asked her teacher if she could do a report and the teacher said not yet. The fact that she asked is huge b/c she is shy and slow to warm up to new people. So I'm proud of her effort.

I'm still waiting to her back from the psychologist about the raw scores before scheduling a meeting. But I'm wondering if knowing how far above 19 she went on those subtests even really matter for that meeting. Will they even understand what that means, heck, I'm not sure I even understand completely what hitting the ceiling means. But I would like to know what was her limit for each subtest.

Ok, thanks!

Ok, thanks! I love numbers too, just don't know too much about the WISC and how things are calculated.

Meant to reply to this earlier and missed it... sorry!

Thank you for the heads up about the writing output. Other than her kindergarten teacher's comment about her showing frustration last year I don't really see it as a big issue, at home anyway. Writing stories is her favorite thing to do and while it may not be the neatest she seems to write freely (fluidly) and not care to much about it being perfect nor showing any frustration at home. I don't think she is average in her writing capabilities (advanced in spelling though) and I'm guessing it will improve as she gets a little older. But as you suggested, I will be on the lookout down the road for any difficulties when she gets to the higher grades. Thanks!

It's probably not going to matter for the school meeting. You already have a PRI score that is very high. Still, I understand the desire to "know." I felt that way and that was my first post to this forum. Like your DD, our DD's original score was already high enough for DYS and just about everything else. A few years down the road, we haven't ever had a need to use the extended norm score versus the "lower" original score. I guess my message is satisfy your curiosity but don't expect it to make a huge practical difference.

@knute

You're right and I decided to have the meeting without it. The principal didn't even get what an IQ score really measures. Her assumption was that maybe younger dd learned stuff b/c I work so much with older dd who is dyslexic (which is actually untrue, if anything I feel like I haven't given younger dd the attention she equally deserves b/c I've been so busy with older dd). Yet, my dyslexic dd, according to their tests, has an average IQ.

I had a meeting yesterday with N***, and the principal. Didn't go that well and I guess I shouldn't be surprised considering how I can't seem to get appropriate help for my older dd in the form of remediation. I just thought since they do have the G&T program at their school that they might be a bit more proactive and understanding to my plight. But ultimately they just sort of 'house' the program for the district along with a few other schools and I don't think they really have a say in the program and how it's funded/run, etc... and are no more educated when it comes to gifted children than any other regular public school in the country.

When a principal starts out with "it's not that we don't believe you" it can never be good. And she seems to think a high IQ score can be achieved by doing workbooks or overhearing lessons with older dd. I thought I would get somewhere when N*** suggested I email her the report from the psychologist. Sent the report to her and CC'ed the principal along with asking for suggestions on how we can differentiate for my dd in the classroom since they don't believe in accelerating. N***'s reply via email was "Thanks for the information. Let's keep in touch." What is that supposed to mean?

So at this point I'm gonna just keep working with the teacher who I love more and more each day) and take things as they come. I think she is my best partner until the G&T program starts next year.

Bummer, I'm sorry. I do find that many educators have no idea what IQ scores measure nor the difference btwn levels of giftedness and how rare HG-PG is in their population. I had a similar conversation with the GT coordinator at our neighborhood school re my dd11 when we were considering other options for her late in elementary. She assured me that she had many students like her and didn't seem to understand the difference btwn 99.9th composite IQ vs. 95th percentile in one area on the CogAT: the 95th in one area on the CogAT kids had very similar scores in her estimation.

The other thing we found was that, at least at our neighborhood school, there is a lot of retesting on group ability tests going on and a lot of prep for these tests. B/c the scores on these group tests change a lot when prepping occurs and b/c they also tend to jump around when kids are retested until they hit that magic 95th number, educators often feel that IQ tests, like the group tests, aren't measuring something innately different so much as the kid having been worked with like your principal seemed to infer.

Ultimately, we've found that with HG+ kid(s), it sometimes isn't a straight road. You may start somewhere and have to change schools later or something else. I try to follow the advice my dd13's GT teacher gave me when we were looking @ her skipping 5th grade: do what's best for her right now. Right then, the grade skip was the right thing and, fortunately, it has turned out to be good long-term as well.

Right now, if the best you're going to get is the classroom teacher differentiating, then you'll have to work with her to find ways to make the differentiation good enough. Later it might be something else. Later the principal might change, the GT program might change, you may wind up working directly with the district GT coordinator for accommodations, who knows.

I hope that this year goes well, though! Good luck.

Cricket has a lot of good points. I would only add that it might be a good idea to contact someone at the district at this point, if the district is more in charge of the GT program at your kiddo's school than the principal. There's a better chance that they will understand what the test results mean.

It is great that your DD's current teacher is so helpful right now. Sometimes, "good enough for now" is what we can get.