Subtitled: What happens when geofizz starts losing sleep over all this.

Background: DS was tested for whole grade acceleration last week by the school psychologist. This was suggested by the school's principal and vice principal in an "intervention" meeting to determine what to do about DS' math needs. DS is an old-for-grade 6 year old kindergartener in a redshirt heavy district. Kindergarten is half days in our district. Going into the meeting we have KTEA-II scores from 8/11 with a 160 in math concepts and applications. After stalling, they placed him in 2nd grade STMath (online program) which he completed in 8 week's time on his own time (no class time given). The most recent intervention meeting was scheduled because I expressed concern about proceeding in this on line manner as it will make it harder and harder to introduce him to classroom learning of mathematics.

Much to my surprise, the principal suggested whole-grade acceleration, then the vice-principal suggested placement in one of the school's 1/2 classes to do 1st grade everything else and 2nd grade math.

The school psychologist did WISC-IV and WJ-III achievement. He gave me WJ-III scores for his current (grade? age? not sure), showing:

Brief Achievement: 146 99.9
Brief Reading: 133 99
Brief Math: 151 >99.9 (subtest applied problems 168)
Brief Writing: 130 98
Academic Skills: 139 99.5
Academic Apps: 142 99.8
subtest vocabulary: 88th percentile

Then he took the same Raw/W scores and produced the report for DS in 1.6 (receiving grade if done immediately)

Brief Achievement: 124 94
Brief Reading: 143 82
Brief Math: 139 99.5 (subtest applied problems 145)
Brief Writing: 105 63 (low subtest spelling 95)
Academic Skills: 117 87
Academic Apps: 125 95
subtest vocabulary 71st percentile

To which he tells me that a skip is not warranted, and we should consider subject acceleration.

Suspecting the anti-skip school psychologist is blowing smoke (if he has to be 95% in the receiving grade, wouldn't he still be just as bored there?), I borrowed the 1st edition of the IAS from the university library. On the Academic Ability and Achievement section, I used his scores to give him 12 points (4 from IQ). I'm guessing some here, because the achievement categories are Vocabulary, total reading, total math, total language, social studies, science, Other.

So that should mean that we should proceed with the rest of the scale as it's >10 points. He gets most of the remaining points, and totaling it most conservatively, I give him a minimum of 51 points, a maximum of 61. This means he's a good candidate for a skip.

BUT, here's the BUT: I've got the 1st edition. The 3rd edition is evidently a bit different, with an additional criterion? I'm looking here in Dottie's post, where there now appears to be an Aptitude section based on above level testing.

Originally Posted by Dottie
AAAA stands for “Academic Ability, Aptitude and Achievement”. This is the score that needs to be 10 before proceeding. It should measure scores in three different areas. Scoring from the 2nd edition follows:

Ability (IQ):
115-129 2 points
130-144 4 points
145+ 6 points

Aptitude (above level testing):
Subjects <50th, no points
Subjects 50th-74th, mid range points
Subjects >75th, maximum points

Various points here, with different totals depending on the test used. I believe there is a maximum you can earn in this category too, forcing a need for points in the other areas. Ideally this should be several grade levels, though at K it’s hard to define. The cuts used by CTY are +2 years for 2nd-4th, +3 years for 5th-8th, and +4-5 for 7th and 8th grades (SAT). I would count what your daughter had as +2, so it should fall within the mid range for aptitude earning her at least some points. Does she have IQ data?

Achievement (grade level):
<89th percentile, 0 points
90th-94th 1 point
>94th 2 points

Again, multiple points can be earned for multiple subject areas. Ideally all three aspects should be considered, and personally I wouldn’t go very far without strong IQ data. This is the score though that counts for the AAAA>10 to move on.


Question 1Does this change anything? DS still has the sky-high scores for in grade. He's BORED. The weakest bit will be spelling, something for which he's not received any instruction.

I can't figure out how far "above-level" the tests should be. The manual doesn't say how far. The example in the manual "Jenny" actually shows no above grade level testing, and they arrived at a 2 year acceleration on a child with a nearly identical profile!

Question 2 what test sections can be used for the different categories? The examples seem to draw points from "other" categories that appear to be subtests of the same achievement test.

Question 3 Why does it seem as though the IAS encourages double counting of things? Are you really supposed to take one test, the WJ-III, and run it for two different ages, and then potentially use the data in two places? That seems like it's cheating or oddly back handed.

Additional info:
We have documented a huge amount of growth since August 2011 (KTEA-II) post here, and we have AIMS Web scores that put his phonological processing in January 2012 in the >99.5 percentile (compare to Aug scores) . His written expression in August was an 87, and was limited to writing letters. Now it's a 130 on the WJ 7 months later, showing DS' response to being given access to education.