Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy intro and ?s about educational needs per scores

Hi,

We recently had both of our boys tested for early entry into our AIG program in Raleigh, NC. We are leaving private school to go back to the public schools as our private did not offer gifted education only leveled classes using Direct Instruction (I was never a big fan of it but necessary at the time.) Our kids start next week and will be evaluated for their learning styles, levels of independence, etc. for two weeks. At which time, they will convene a meeting with us to discuss the Differential Educational Plans they are suggesting for each child. I am quickly processing many books on gifted children and education now that I have real scores to go by. Previously, I had my suspicions, but nothing concrete enough for the school system (our is 16th largest in the US).

I am trying to be prepared at the meeting at the end of July so that I can adequately assess their offerings. I am having difficulties in understanding just "how" gifted my boys are and am hoping for some guidance from this board. My school seems to think it's no big deal, they can handle it, but I'm not as assured.

My oldest is 8, I thought he was high achieving but his scores said he was gifted. Here they are:

WISC IV (% means percentile)
FSIQ 135 99%
VC 134 99%
PR 129 97%
WM 123 94%
PS 123 94%
(psyc said he was very methodical and focused in his completion of tasks which slowed him down, ie perfectionism)

Woodcock Johnson, 3rd add.
Reading Comp 121 (91%) (vocab hindered him at 80)
Math 133 (99%)

Same kid has anger issues, flying off the handle easily though is doing better now that he's been home for the summer for a month. He's a very sweet kid, supremely athletic, short on patience, reads like a fiend, can do any lego project thrown at him, etc. Not sure how much of the temperment is gifted based or just that he's my son.

He's a rising 3rd grader, our system does AIG evals mid year 3rd grade requiring 90% or higher to then get the CogAt which helps determine referral into the gifted program. I didn't want him to wait for a year for identification as that's why we left the system in the first place. Do you think he can have his needs met in class via differentiation or should I push for single subject acceleration in math?

Kid #2,
This one we knew was gifted . Here are his scores:

WISC-IV
FSIQ 143 99.8%
VC 128 97%
PR 145 99.9%
WM 141 99.7%
PS 92%

Woodcock-Johnson
Reading Comp 141 99.7%
Math 165(zowie--I'm awful with math) 99.9%

This kid is rising 1st, I know the system is interested in grade skipping. My husband and I are not so interested. We live in an affluent area, the school is comprised of probably 25% middle income, 25% mid-high income and 50% high income (if you are looking at a national scale). We don't want him to get too close to his older brother (they are almost exactly 2 years apart in age), nor do we want him to miss out of being valedictorian as the competition is fierce by high school. He is very comfortable with kids his age and older by 2-3 years. Last year, in private school, he did the NC 2nd grade curriculum and passed with 97-100% in all of his classes.

Any advice or further questions you would ask are greatly appreciated,

very excited to have a board like this,
Shannon Lora, Raleigh, NC

I'm relatively new to this, and not an expert by any stretch of the imagination. But, I'll humor myself and attempt to answer your post. The real experts will be along soon I'm sure to offer their more experienced views.

It seems like you have two levels of gifted (LOG) going on. (This is just based on scores, and nothing else.)

I would think the older child's LOG will be a little easier to address in public school than your younger. Most gifted schools cut off at 130, and he is past that, but maybe not as far past to require more acceleration.

How is he doing in math? Is he bored? From the WJ-III alone, it seems that differentiation would be a good place to start. I don't know that I would push for subject acceleration at this point unless you feel he isn't being adequately challenged with just differentiation.

So, IMO, try the gifted program at his grade level and see how it goes.

Your younger may present more of a challenge.

He's almost a full standard deviation above the gifted cut off, so I would imagine he may need more than just the gifted class.

If it were my child, it almost is,(mine is a year younger, 140 on the SB-V) I would consider a grade skip. I understand not wanting to get him to close to his brother. I'm not sure how families deal with that. (My GT DS is the oldest, so I don't need to worry about him passing anyone.) I also understand the competitive school situation, but if he isn't adequately challenged, you run the risk of underachievement, and then you are no better off. (That's not to say that will definitely happen, of course he could sail through school marvelously with his age mates, make valedictorian, and be on his way to Princeton.) I would at least push for acceleration in Math. If he was in K, and doing 2nd grade math, he for sure needs more. 165 is wicked high.

Welcome to the group!

I would add that Kid #2 qualifies for DYS on teh basis of those scores, and you should apply.

I wasn't sure, I don't know how to calculate GAI. Yet. (She says with an evil laugh)

You don't need GAI to qualify, only one of either VCI or PRI, and one broad achievement score in the qualifying range.

Between the PRI of 145 and the math achievement of 165, it looks like this kiddo meets the criteria.

Thanks for your response . We really want to avoid grade skipping, this area is highly competitive (surrounded by 11 colleges and universities) for scholarships, etc. It would be a last resort. My youngest is very independent and seeks information on his own,but, he loves people and works well in groups too.

I forgot to mention that my oldest was subject accelerated in the leveled classes at our previous school. He has completed the 3rd grade NC curriculum in math, reading comp, writing, spelling and language arts. He is a rising 3rd grader, so I'm not sure if going one grade level up is enough since it would just be next on the agenda anyway. He did complain of being bored and rarely got stuck (high As for his report card as well). Long division seemed to stick a bit but my husband was able to explain it and then he got it.

We are going to apply for DYS, any help is very much appreciated. What exactly is GAI and how is it figured, we didn't receive that score with our reports.

thanks,
Shannon

For some reason I didn't see the 145 initially. I should probably leave these posts to people who actually look at the numbers.

Please keep trying Amber - all you need is practice!

Good that you are appying to DYS. I would put in an application for your older son as well, IQ plus portfolio - he may not get accepted at this time, but my guess is that his GAI is over 145.
Opps - my eyeballs slipped and I misread. DS#1 is solidly gifted, but may well have lots of peers. A full skip might still be a great idea of him, depends on what they are teaching compared to what he is ready to learn.

GAI is 'general abilities index' and based on the strenths of Verbal and Performance without the 'hiderance' of the speed and WM index which are subject to cooperation issues. Don't get me wrong - those scores are very high, and not low enough to signal any kind of problem, but they are low enough to give a falsely deflated FSIQ.

We can calculate GAI if you post the 3 subtests in Verbal and Performance subscales or your tester can.

I think that you should skip both kids 'for now.' If by the time they are in Middle School you see any reason that they can't 'compete' with their current grade, you can keep them home for a year 'going deep' or you can send them to private school for an extra year of 8th grade so they will be ready for the local competition. The idea is to try and meet their needs at the time, and stay flexible.

I thought my son was ready and he did 9th grade, age 13, at the local High School and we all saw that he wasn't ready, so I sent him to private school to repeat 9th grade. Apparently that happens very frequently even with boys who weren't skipped to start with.

But I wonder if your older son isn't so angry because he feels shamed by being given 'baby work' and treated 'like a baby' by his teachers. This was a big issue with my son. Lack of challenge was making him second guess himself, on top of the yearning to learn.

Love and More Love,
Grinity

Sharon I am pretty sure that Grinity may have made a mistake predicting a DYS level GAI for kid#1. I could also be wrong but am guessing it won't be much higher than the FSIQ, as you say neither the VCI or PRI are super high. Kid#2 might not even have a much higher than FSIQ because his VCI is not super high but the WMI is, which will be lifting the FSIQ but won't count in the GAI.

But even without Grinity's years of experience I completely agree with her to do what works now and make changes later if you have to. I agree it's not ideal to have to reverse a skip, but there are a number of ways to do it that can be positive. A child that passionately hates school (and brings their anger home to share with the whole family) or determinedly underperforms may be harder to reverse.

Sharon, just revisiting the GAI question - have a look at this thread:

http://giftedissues.davidsongifted....ge_discrepancy_in_WISC_I.html#Post106352

This is an example of both VCI and PRI being VERY high, but the supporting WMI and PSI are more "normal" so they pull the FSIQ down but the GAI is very very high. The GAI would reflect the child's incredible reasoning ability, the FSIQ may (or may not) be a better reflection of how they perform in the classroom. The GAI tells you that you have a child with truly extraordinary giftedness the FSIQ tells you it's possible they may perform like a more "normally gifted" kid. It's possible for a child with scores like that to either be under estimated or to be constantly asked why they don't try harder, why they are underperforming, etc.

Hi,

Thx for all the ideas, here are the full scores for both to help with the discussion.

My 8yo,
WISC IV (% means percentile)
FSIQ 135 99%
VC 134 99%
Similarities 14
Vocab 15
Comp 18
PR 129 97%
Block design 12
Picture concepts 15
Matrix reasoning 17
WM 123 94%
Digit Span 14
Letter-Number sequencing 14
PS 123 94%
Coding 15
Symbol Search 13

Woodcock Johnson, 3rd add.
Reading Comp 121 (91%)
Passage Comp 123
Reading Vocab 113
Math 133 (99%)
Applied problems 127
Quantitative concepts 129

My 6yo
WISC IV (% means percentile)
FSIQ 143 99%
VC 128 97%
Similarities 12
Vocab 16
Comp 16
PR 145 99.9%
block design 18
picture concepts 16
matrix reasoning 18
WM 141 99.7%
digit span 16
letter-number sequencing 18
PS 121 92%
coding 12 (said this may be due to his handwriting skills as yet still developing--it's pretty bad when he's not trying hard and it a hurry--can be great when he takes the time)
symbol search 15


Woodcock Johnson, 3rd add.
Reading Comp 141 (99.7%)
passage comp 139
reading vocab 129
Math 165 (99.9%)
applied problems 154
quantitative concepts 150

We have very bright men in our family who are engineers, one scored a perfect 1600 on the SAT in high school and went to the NC School of Science and Math. We know where it's coming from but not sure of its extent.

I do not plan to even try to skip my oldest, not ready socially and his writing needs to catch up. He loves math and science but hates structure. He has begged to be home schooled but I know he would be just horrible for me--not an option.

Is my 6yo exceptionally gifted? He seems to meet the LOG 4 in Ruf's book based on his early readiness signs/achievements. How does grade skipping him where he'd still need one to two years higher advancement in math help him out? His handwriting and composition skills are certainly not at a 3rd grade level yet even if he can do the work.

Are you guys saying his FSIQ is suppressed by the WISC-IV sd scale? Should he have taken an extended test?

thanks,

If my calculations are correct the GAI for Child#1 is 138 and for child#2 is 144.

Ok--thanks for the GAI clarification. We don't seem to have any problems with a big discrepancy in that area as the boys scores are relatively even in their profiles--my 8yo, in particular, was noted to be very consistent across his scores.

Would still love to hear how grade skipping actually works when it doesn't solve the level the child needs to be taught to. In our district, they are implementing a new compressed 4th/5th grade math curriculum for qualifying students next year. Unfortunately, he needs 4th grade math THIS year, sigh. I appreciate that more options are being developed, we just have to get through elementary (K-5) and then there are a ton of advanced options. Also, our middle school shares the campus with our elementary so going their for advanced math, etc. is certainly an option by 4th grade I would think. The high school is just down the road, maybe 2/10 of a mile--again with all AP classes you can think of and a large population (2500 students) from which to draw peers. I don't want to muck up what is down the line by being impatient now.

I've thought about pulling one/both kid out during the school day for enrichment classes I can drum up as part of their curriculum. I know another parent who does this for her gifted kids. Thoughts?

Shannon

These are astute comments, and you are very accurate. When I watch her in the classroom, she doesn't even look gifted (but there are social factors at play there too - she explained that no-one likes the girl who knows all the answers, so she only puts her hand up second). She has been known to take 2 school days to complete a simple assignment i.e. draw a picture of what you did at the weekend, and write a sentence to describe it. (Apparently she couldn't decide what to draw.) Even at home, we don't see reading etc. that would suggest anything very impressively beyond the typical child. She is reading Flower Fairy books for herself, but we are reading-aloud Swiss Family Robinson together.
However, when you interact with her she is awesomely, in-your-face, unmistakably smart, and even strangers remark on it after a brief conversation. I have seen her (age 5 yrs.) genuinely out-argue a smart tenure-track professor colleague of mine on a philosophical point. If you want a practical problem solved or a schedule organised, she is your woman!
She either can't or doesn't put her abilities out there though...

Thank you for your comments - they help me think about how I can best support her.
Nadro

I am so glad that was useful and not offensive, I nearly deleted my post, I was so worried. Then my kids distracted me :-). I have spent a lot of time reading and thinking about the spikiness because I have one of my own - but not nearly so out there as your girl!

Have you done any reading about gifted girls and under achievement? There is a degree to which being socially aware that no-one likes a know it all is a useful skill, but when it inhibits achievement it becomes a problem... And it will make it harder for you to identify the difference between can't and won't.

Sharon,

You have almost identical situation (the test results) as ours. Mine are girls age 7 & 9. DD9 will be in 5th grade coming school year and DD7 will be in 3rd. They skipped kinder when they started school. DD9 is doing well in her class but not outstanding but my DD7 is way beyond her peers (some are 2 yrs older in her class). The school does not do subject acceleration and (after discussion with CTY result in hand) the principal suggested to skip another grade for DD7. We decided against it on following grounds:

1) we are not thinking of sending her to college at young age so why rush
2) she may miss out on valedictorian, competitions, etc...(as you said)
3) even though she is mature for her age, she may not handle peer pressure well (especially in middle school)
4) to preserve my DD9 psyche

We are supplementing after school. They would bring some books to read after they finish their works. DD7 usually finish real quick and sometimes help out her friends (with teacher permission) and she enjoyed that. She likes the fact that she is doing 2-3 grades above what other kids in the class are doing. That gives her incentive/motivation to learn ahead.

So far, it is still working. I think there is no clear blueprint for our kids' success. We have to adjust on their abilities and consider their emotional and social developments (rather quickly).

I hope you find what works best for you.

My DD9 knows that DD7 is smarter than her and she was OK with that (most of the time). No. 4 is not the only reason but one of them, at least for now.

We are monitoring their progress and we may change our plan if necessary. Most of the people believe that teaching/tutoring other kids won't help for gifted kids. But we want them to become well-rounded individual and develop leadership skills. DD7 is doing it on her own and we don't want to take that away from her. She felt the classes in school are too easy but she did not feel bored because she always find something to do (helping the teacher do correction, etc...) When she starts losing interest, we will switch to our plan B or C.

I think tutoring other kids is a great way to develop patience and a deeper understanding of concepts. I tutored other kids for pay all through high school and college. Based on my own school experiences, I would be cautious about having a situation where your daughter is acting as a teaching assistant for her own classmates, though. This kind of social dynamic makes it harder to develop peer-to-peer relationships as it puts the child who is tutoring and correcting work in a position of authority over her classmates, and marks her as not really being part of the class.

Edit: To clarify, I think informal "helping out her friends" is fine, provided that that is not used as a substitute for her having an opportunity to learn new things. But I think that a situation where this is routine or she is expected to help other kids after she has done the class work should be avoided.

You might want to take a look at www.nationdeceived.org/ if you haven't already. There are reasons not to place a child at their accademic readiness level, but social and emotional development isn't one of them.

Good for your older DD for being supportive of her little sister!
Grinity

Thanks for the link, I read the first part and have changed my mind about grade acceleration. How can I refute evidence from those sources, it's purely selfish on my part to want to keep him that last year at this point. I forwarded it on to my sister in law too as her almost 4yo is sure to need acceleration.

thanks again,
Shannon L.