In the process of getting my elementary moderately gifted child tested for a SLD in Written Expression and it sounds like he took the TOWL-4 today. He said that he was asked to write a sentence that incorporates a certain word. (E.g.: For ‘ran’, he would write, “I ran up the hill.”) He hates writing (of course) so he excitedly tells me that for about "1/4" of the words he was given he wrote as his sentence: "What does [word given] mean?" He described as a way to "exploit" the system. LOL. My husband was pretty upset. I was actually happy because this is what I think needs to be captured/assessed - not just just his poor writing mechanics but he problems with actual written expression. I am assuming that was not a correct way to answer those type of questions and points will be taken off, correct?

The test you're describing sounds more like the WIAT-III than the TOWL-4, if that's most of what he did. In any case, the appropriate prompt to those types of responses is to request that the child write another sentence, using the word in a different (more meaningful) way. If that was not done, then the score is invalid anyway, and any points deducted or not deducted are irrelevant.

Oh interesting. He said he actually asked the tester if he could do that as an answer and she said she could not tell him that. Hmmm, yeah I am not entirely sure it was the TOWL as I was not there. It was a part of a number of writing tasks he had and I know they are giving him the TOWL.

I will say the example sentence sounds like the TOWL, and if you were told specifically that it would be given, there’s not much reason to give another, similar test. Regardless, one is not typically supposed to accept answers that simply quote the word, which is what all his responses did. These are essentially the same as, “‘Word’ is a word.” Which doesn’t meet the task objectives. Well, actually, that one does! But if the stimulus word were anything else, it wouldn’t.