I am not an expert but from what I have been told it is true that scores at 7 years old are not very stable. The difference has to do with the statistical norming. For instance at 7 your daughter may have done significantly better than other 7 years olds (which is who she was compared to) but at her current age many of her age peers would have experienced substantial improvement in the way they have performed. So regression to the mean (which is what this is called) is pretty normal. It is not that your DD performed less well it is simply that other performed better at this current age than they did before.
psychland, I think that the difference liisa's dd's scores show is too large of a difference to be attributed to regression to the mean.
Re stability of IQ tests, I have also heard that results for young children are not always reliable, but I've also heard that 7-8 years old is usually the age that it's ok to start relying on results - it's the tests given at 4-5 etc that might yield wildly inaccurate numbers.
liisa, did the school only offer VIQ and PRI subtests, or did they also give the Processing Speed and Working Memory sections of the WISC? I suspect that what you are seeing is related to whatever caused the large discrepancy in her Processing Speed subtest scores back at 7. Overall, it looks like there is something 2e going on - both with the two sets of test scores (discrepancies) and with having had to teach your dd to read via O-G.
The things I would do:
1) Request a full score report from the school - before the meeting. Postpone the meeting until you've had a chance to see all the actual subtest scores, not just percentiles. Also see if there are any notes re what happened during testing (things like, did your dd appear distracted etc). You might not get any of this, but ask.
2) Who is going to be at the meeting on Monday? Is it a "team" meeting with teachers and whoever ran the test? Just gifted teacher? If you want to, you can also ask to talk to the person who administered the test individually prior to your meeting. This would give you a chance to better understand what might be going on with the scores, which in turn will help you prepare for the meeting.
3) You can google "WISC subtest descriptions" online and read through the specific descriptions - I'd do that, and see if you see any correlations between the subtests that are low and things you've noticed when working with your dd. For instance, the coding subtest requires the student to copy directional marks and it's timed. It can be a challenge for children who have vision issues as well as children who have fine motor challenges and children who are perfectionists might also have a low score on it relative to their other scores. When you go through each subtest thinking through the exact specific skill that is used, is it timed, etc, you then try to piece it all together and see what makes sense. For instance, if coding was low but symbol search (finding matching symbols in a busy random field) isn't low, then that would potentially point to a fine motor rather than vision issue causing the low coding score. Then you'd think through - do I see signs of a fine motor challenge in my child's classwork or achievement testing etc. It's like a puzzle, and as the parent it's most likely going to be up to you to put it all together (for now).
3) Many of us parents of 2e kids here who have discrepancies in subtest scores etc have found that it's helpful to have the testing done through a private neuropsychologist, both because a neuropsychologist will follow up the discrepancies with additional testing themselves and/or suggest evals by other types of professionals to get to the root of what's causing the ups and downs in subtest scores, as well as spend time with you reviewing their findings, which will include observations of behavior during the testing, reviews of schoolwork, and a discussion of the students' developmental history which may tie in with some of the observed testing ups and downs.
4) I think (and my memory isn't that great, so you should double check lol!) that the Matrix Reasoning subtest relies on vision. Your dd had a tough time learning how to read but didn't test positive for dyslexia or other reading challenges at the time - this *could* also be an indication of a vision challenge - possibly things not related to the eyesight in each eye but related to how well the eyes work together - do they track each other, is peripheral vision ok, are the eye muscles weak, can your child focus her eyes up close etc.
5) Did the school give your dd any achievement testing at the time they gave her the new WISC? (WJ-III or WIAT etc?) If they did, what did those scores look like? Were they consistent or were there relative highs and lows? If she had discrepancies in the achievement subtest scores, it would be helpful to look at those and compare with the WISC subtest score discrepancies - chances are there is a clue there as to what is going on.
polarbear
ps - this isn't going to help in understanding the WISC scores, but might help in advocating. Does your school district offer any nationally normed achievement tests to the full student body (such as TerraNova or ITBS etc)? If they do, are those scores considered for the gifted program placement? If your dd has high scores on those tests, bring them with you to your meeting. Also bring examples of her work.
