We homeschool, just started "officially" and were considering signing Boo up for a charter/umbrella school for assessment purposes. So this thread is very timely for us!
For my family, these assessments will act as benchmarks to gage progress. Boo started the DORA. She's doing it in sections, as she only has limited access to a computer with sound. In any event, she "threw" the first section. I knew she was tired and asked her if she wanted to wait, but she insisted. And, I think she thought that part was dumb, because she perked up at the next section. I'm not too worried, as she does the items on that part of the exam consistantly already. It will skew the overall results a bit, I'm sure.
Her next lowest section is oral vocabulary. The test says a word and shows a series of pictures and the the test-taker is supposed to choose the picture that best matches the word's meaning. Pretty straight forward. Too bad the test doesn't take explainations into account. I don't want to give away any answers, but this one is too funny to pass up. The computer said, "finish" and showed several pictures. One of which was of a person lying on the ground (an athlete presumably, since there was referee and a coach-ish person nearby) another picture was of someone reading a book at a desk.
Boo chose the picture of the person at the desk. I asked her about it later. She said it was because "clearly the person reading wanted to finishreading the book, whereas, (yes she said "whereas") the runner was simply finishedand since the computer said "finish" and not "finished" the picture with book mustbe the correct one." Makes total sense! And to think I would have chosen the picture with the athlete!
Even so with an unfinished assessment (one section remaining), one section that she she "threw" and another that would have been much better if it allowed for explainations (LOL), thus far, her scores are surprising. Okay not surprising, as they are inline with where I had thought she was but...
Now, my GT deniability factor has been greatly reduced. Of course I'll still wait for the finished assessment before making a final judgement; still it's pretty clear from what I have so far that she's doing much more than an ND 4.5 year old.
