Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Best test for math talent?

My DD's teacher and principal have decided they need to do some testing (not necessarily DT- PI, but they want to know where she is and what gaps there are). The school routinely uses NNAT and COGAT for whole-class testing. Will they most likely use those for this too? Are those tests good for math? Are they automatically going to test to the limits of her ability or are they grade levelled? I worry about taking her through four grade levels worth of testing. I'd be burnt out and I'm not 5.

Do you think they'll use those tests only, or others. Is it appropriate for me to ask which tests they'll use and make suggestions or ask for a different test? Our aim right now is targeting in-class differentiation and providing materials for the K teacher.

Who normally does the test? The school psychologist or one of the GATE teachers?

She's in K, reading at grade level but between grade level and 4 years advanced in math.

The best is the end of year tests, of course not on the same day, there isn't really a rush now that some action is agreed on. I would stongly advise that they have a GATE teacher sit down and observe and interact with your DD to find out how she is getting her answers. My son could do pretty complicated division 'by inspection'50% of the time, but he still needed to be taught more efficient ways to get the job done.

You should absolutely ask how they plan to figure this out. And then if they do recommend a big skip, I would go to www.aleks.com/ and sign up for a free trial this weekend and see what she can do with my own eyes. I would bring printouts of the kinds of problems she is doing and work samples in her handwriting.

In other words, I would access my kid myself first, and then let them do their thing at school, and see if the results match up.

Love and more Love,
Grinity

Recognize that a test of general cognitive ability isn't going to test for math talent specifically, although tests that load fluid reasoning (flexible problem solving ability) tend to correlate pretty well with math achievement (tests that measure crystallized intelligence (stuff you know) and working memory (ability to hold stuff in mind and work with it on the fly) are also relevant both to being a good arithmetist (okay, I made that word up) and to being a good mathematician.

Tests that measure current math achievement also don't tell you whether that achievement is due to "talent" or "hard work" or a combination of both. Sometimes you'll see very good arithmetists who are just good arithmetists, but not very good mathematical thinkers -- they're just very good at doing what they're taught. But math achievement tests as Grinity suggests will at least tell you about what the current level of math achievement is, which is often the most relevant information for math placement.

Personally, if the question is about math talent and appropriate teaching styles for a kid, I'd use some of both -- I want to see the cognitive underpinnings that will make excellent mathematical thinking possible, as well as how the actual kid is developing in their use of those tools. I'd use both an IQ test as well as the KeyMath-3 (second choice for a math-specific referral would be the WJ-III Achievement). I like the KeyMath a lot for its comprehensive coverage of the curriculum and its focus both on acquired skills and on problem-solving techniques. It gives me a very nice picture of a kid's approach to math.

The tests I use (1:1 administration) generally have routing procedures so that a kid is not spending too much time on items at the "wrong" level of difficulty. Stuff designed for group administration is not designed that way -- usually, if the goal is GT identification, you'll do something like use the test 2 grade levels up ("out of level testing").

However, recognize that a school will tend not to do anything in much depth. They're not really trying to answer questions about learning style -- they're just trying to figure out which kids they're going to put in the seats in their existing program. Sigh.

Thanks for the comprehensive reply, Aimee. I think I've seen you mention the keymath before?

Would it be out of line for me to ask about what sort of tests they're going to do? Do you see any disadvantages if they use those levelled group tests? I know there are things I have specifically left out because I thought they'd be handy to learn in school, or because we didn't have the materials. Last week I would have told you she was a very strong mathematical thinker and not so much an arithmetist, but this week she shocked us on the arithmetics front. In terms of programs, my impression from the internet is that they tend to be impressed by arithmetic and provide mathematical activities for enrichment? So the recent surge in arithmetic would be to her advantage in terms of getting their attention?

I actually didn't want to ask for testing in case she doesn't test well (as a timid five year old), but her teacher thinks she'll be fine. Will the tester ask for a rough outline of where she is beforehand?

Our 5 year old is also very strong in math. We recently had him tested with the SBV and the Woodcock Johnson - III. We don't have the final results for him, but everything correlated well with what we thought about his skills. I have previously communicated with the Center for Talented Youth (CTY) staff at Hopkins about how to have him tested; they are well known for their work with gifted kids, particularly in the math area -- they started the "original" above grade level talent search. This started in the 70s as the "Study for Mathematically Precocious Youths"; the original premise is that boys and girls take the same math classes (in general, and more at that time) through middle school, starting differentiation in high school, so if you test kids at 7th grade, you may see what sort of differences there really are between the genders. Anyway, their team suggested the KeyMath3, because of its thoroughness in evaluating different mathematical skills. We ended up with the WJ-III because as it turns out, it isn't so easy to find someone who actually knows and uses the KeyMath3. If we ultimately test him further, we will probably go up to Hopkins to do specific math testing.

The SBV and WJ-III, though gave us the answers we need right now (that is, he is very very bright, particularly at math, and they /we will need to work harder at keeping him accomodated and challenged, particularly as he gets older). We are sort of feeling our way in accomodation. His teacher is working with him one on one on a 3rd grade math workbook, and we are going to try out the EPGY program, to see if that is something he responds to.

Good luck!! Our son tested great, and he can certainly be a bit timid. Rapport with the tester is important, and make sure that they don't test for too long at once (we did three two hour sessions, which worked out great). DS was very disappointed after the three weeks of testing that he didn't get to go back to see the "puzzle doctor" anymore. He wants to know if 6 year olds can go to the puzzle doctor again...

I'll make sure I ask how long each session is.

How are you going with third grade materials? They're so much less picture-y than the second grade stuff and I'm not so keen on drilling for math fact memorization. I'll be interested to hear your take on EPGY if you can post a review. Someone else on here said it wasn't so great for really young kids.

We haven't really started yet. I am going to actually start him at the first grade level until he gets the hang of it, and see how quickly he progresses through it. He thinks at the third grade level or so, but he is missing certain things that he hasn't really been exposed to much (mostly money and time), although I think he'll soak those up quickly once he starts.

The third grade materials we are working with are a nice combination of math facts and extensions that make the worksheets fun. We are also just at the very beginning of the workbook, so he is reviewing some second grade stuff. For instance, last week one of his homework sheets was a series of adding four sums to get an answer, each of which had a letter next to it. He then had to fill in the right letter for each sum in a series of blanks, which gave him the answer to a riddle. He loved it. Another sheet was finding all of the vertical and horizontal pairs of numbers in a number grid that added up to a certain number.

I agree with you to some degree about the math fact memorization, but what I have found is that he is somewhat limited in his math thinking by NOT having simple addition facts memorized. It is very obvious when he just knows a fact (e.g. 4+4 or 5+5), versus having to figure it out every time (e.g. 7+8). I think it will be very useful to him to have those facts at his fingertips. Same thing for multiplication, although we haven't really worked on that outside of the occasional word problem that he's come across. He knows the concept, but not the process.

Snap! Money and time are lagging here, too.

As of this week I agree with you math facts holding her back. We just started division and for the next step into remainders and long division you really need to know multiplication facts. Last week I thought memorising facts was was a tool of the patriarchy.

Ah - that brings back memories!

DS received IQ testing at 4 1/2 with SB5. The psychologist who tested him suggested that he come back at 6 and do the TOMAGS he is 6 now). Don't know much about it, but wondered if that would be necessary or not. Right now he is in a 4th grade class for math, but it is pretty easy for him and he is scoring high 90's so far...and never studies a thing. Just curious if anyone knows much about the TOMAGS.