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    Joined: Apr 2009
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    Hi! I'm not a regular poster but I am an occasional lurker. My DD9 was identified by the Chicago Public School system as gifted when she was 4 and placed into a gifted kindergarten in a school that we call a "regional gifted center (RGC)." After grades K-3 in the RGC (acceleration 1 grade level beyond) things slowly deteriorated into a bad situation for my daughter and our family. I doubted her giftedness, contemplated conduct disorder as a possibility, and generally pulled my hair out. My son is autistic and gifted as well, so we have a lot of moving parts. He was born right when she was placed in the gifted school and I've had my hands full ever since so she's taken the back burner for a while. I had come to the conclusion that she's "bright" not "BRIGHT."

    I moved her this year to another school (more on that later) but recently found out her ISAT scores were off the hook. But I don't know what that really means. She didn't miss one question on the math and no multiple choice on the reading, got dinged for one of her extended responses. Both scores are 99.9%, 9th stanine, etc.

    ISAT's aren't known for being incredibly rigorous (this year Common Core was blended in, 20 or 50 percent, can't remember). I had a mini-test done when she was 4 at the Northwestern Center for Talent Development, and she tested for the program but didn't shatter any scores.

    Just trying to figure out where to take this, if anywhere. We are doing algebra on KhanAcademy.com, she reads like a maniac (taught herself between 3-4.5), she wants to take the Explore test (which I don't think she is ready for yet).

    Just give me a reality check here.

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    Hi! Welcome!

    The fact she wants to take the Exlore test is a good indication she wants more. I would let her.

    And don't be too hard on yourself. It's hard to get a handle on these kiddos sometimes. If you look around this site and read the posts you'll see you're not the only one who's underestimated. I've done it myself and sometimes still do.

    Last edited by KADmom; 10/07/13 04:39 AM.
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    I would very strongly encourage you to have her take the Explore. The only way to get some indication of where she is is an above level test. What do you mean "ready" for it? I would just make sure she knows that there will be stuff she has never been taught because it is for 8th graders. It was the first clue that my daughter really needed much more, and led us to get her tested with WISC and subsequent extremely successful grade skip. She is happy and thriving. I had come to the same conclusion re: bright but I was wrong.

    I have two younger complicated kids, so I get when the needs of one get put on the back burner. It is a really easy way to start to understand and address her needs to have her take Explore.

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    Originally Posted by glexchick
    After grades K-3 in the RGC (acceleration 1 grade level beyond) things slowly deteriorated into a bad situation for my daughter and our family. I doubted her giftedness, contemplated conduct disorder as a possibility, and generally pulled my hair out. My son is autistic and gifted as well, so we have a lot of moving parts.

    I'd echo yes on the EXPLORE. DS11 (autism/gifted) took it in 4th, loved the experience and it helped him start getting a handle on what his giftedness meant. He maxed out the test in 4th, so I was glad we did it then-- doing it later would not have helped us know as much.

    Given that autism is in your family, I'd suggest having your DD evaluated for autism spectrum issues as well; what looks like conduct disorder can be anxiety-driven. Better to know than not to know.

    DeeDee

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    I looked at the Explore math and english samples and I just don't think she's been taught some of this stuff yet. I don't want her to take it and then get frustrated if she doesn't do well. She has always thought she wasn't as smart as her peers (she had a lot of boys in her gifted class, and this is the age where the boys run around telling the girls how much smarter they are...made me laugh because she killed them in word problems in math but because she would space what 6x7 was and the boys were better at the rote stuff so she thought she was "bad" at math).

    So now she is very proud of herself about the ISAT's and I think has an understanding of her giftedness (instead of just thinking we were telling her that because we're her parents). She's in a new school and killing it there too, so lots of new confidence. It's a Montessori 4-5-6 combo and it only took them a few weeks to decide to accelerate her (and it's easy). That was one of my frustrations with her old school...they called themselves gifted but all they did was accelerate, and that was just in Kindergarten...so they were always a year ahead, but other than that they were as hide bound as any traditional school. Actually more so b/c if the kid wasn't getting straight A's they wouldn't contemplate walking them up beyond their gifted classroom, which was a self perpetuating problem generator. Bored=less effort=even worse grades.

    Anyway, so now that she's got some self confidence, I'm just worried about blowing it. The things that she was doing that made me think conduct disorder have all disappeared with the new school environment. But she and her brother are both prone to anxiety, and I have often wondered if i should have her evaluated. Because her new school is not straight gifted, she is in class with several children who have disabilities and it's out in the open, so she's been talking a lot about it and asking me if I think she has a disability and other times asking what it means to be gifted, so I know she knows she's different (as do I) but not sure how it all fits. She doesn't seem autistic at all, but, man, nothing would surprise me at this point.

    Her brother is hyperlexic, read at 2.5 and diagnosed with ASD last spring. He is all over the map too. Sometimes I think he's not autistic at all, just a mad scientist the world doesn't understand...but whatever, he's getting the help he needs. Just never sure if I'm doing the right stuff with her because there is so much less help out there for a smart kid, so much less guidance on what to do for them.

    Good point though that the fact she wants to take it is an important piece of the puzzle and i need to honor that.

    Welp, I'll tell her she can take the test next spring. We can play around with some of the test questions over the winter so she's not frustrated by the test. I haven't ever test prepped her, but I do want her to have seen what the questions will be like before she takes it.

    Anything else I should be thinking about?

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    you'll receive sample questions after you sign her up. Anything other than that would defeat the whole purpose of above level testing: to see what your dd's capabilities are, not what she already knows. In other words, above level tests act more like ability tests than achievement.
    We signed our ds11 up for it in 5th grade. No prep. Just the sample questions. One of the reasons we did it is we wanted our perfectionist son to see what it felt like to take a test for which he wasn't expected to know all the answers. He had our full permission to FAIL. He really, really needed to experience that and knowing that it was a test meant for eighth graders made it acceptable for ds.
    We had no idea how far above the on-grade ceiling he was until he took that test. And because we didn't prep him, his subsequent iq test backed up the information we received from the above-level test.[i][/i]
    It's really a great opportunity.
    It sounds like you have great instincts though and you'll do what's best for your dd.

    Last edited by KADmom; 10/07/13 08:55 AM.
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    If you want her to have "seen" the format and at least understand WHAT content will be presented, that's probably fine. Practice tests-- at least a couple of them... but don't go overboard.


    I echo the other cautions about active PREPPING of topical coverage. That won't tell either one of you a thing. Oh, sure, it might look good, but ultimately, you'll be in the position of wondering if comparisons are valid, given that the idea in that testing population (that is, out of level testing using EXPLORE) is that they have NOT seen so much of the content. In other words, an HG child who has been "prepped" will almost certainly OUTSCORE a PG child who hasn't.

    Better (IMO) to work on the anxiety part of things and respond appropriately to (potentially low) practice test scores. Or better still-- don't even evaluate them and shrug it off to your DD, explaining that HOW WELL she does isn't really a concern for you. This isn't like a school test. smile


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    ITA about prepping, I get it, I never have, because, well, did you see the title of this thread? lolz. No prep, just exposure to the sample questions. I think that's reasonable.

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    Originally Posted by glexchick
    ITA about prepping, I get it, I never have, because, well, did you see the title of this thread? lolz. No prep, just exposure to the sample questions. I think that's reasonable.

    lol!

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    Originally Posted by HowlerKarma
    If you want her to have "seen" the format and at least understand WHAT content will be presented, that's probably fine. Practice tests-- at least a couple of them... but don't go overboard.

    I echo the other cautions about active PREPPING of topical coverage. That won't tell either one of you a thing. Oh, sure, it might look good, but ultimately, you'll be in the position of wondering if comparisons are valid, given that the idea in that testing population (that is, out of level testing using EXPLORE) is that they have NOT seen so much of the content. In other words, an HG child who has been "prepped" will almost certainly OUTSCORE a PG child who hasn't.
    The country may be becoming more Bostonian smile over time, spending more time preparing for standardized tests. For example, the Russian School of Math http://www.russianschool.com/2013-award-winners , which has branches in MA and elsewhere, boasts of its students' results on talent search tests. If we have reached the tipping point where most talent search participants are preparing, it is the students who not prepare who are getting the most biased results (in their case, downwards). Another argument for preparation is that there are Tiger children of Tiger parents who are motivated to study (vocabulary, for example) by the prospect of taking the SAT again.

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