Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy HELP! Choosing Test Subject Order

We are giving DS5 the 1st grade Terra Nova test in about a week and a half. This is out of level for him. Due to his young "kindergarten" age (Our local age cutoff is in December, and two weeks after his birthday.), I consider this to be more than a year out of level. The test is only for our personal knowledge and does not *mean* anything, other than giving his father a confidence that DS is doing well compared to other kids.

I've just received the test. He will ace the math, science, and social studies.

However, he's not yet a confident reader and he's going to flip out when he's confronted with the reading sections. I had spoken to a representative at the testing center, asking about the level of independent reading required for the test and was assured that at this level, there wasn't much independent reading required. This is totally not the case.

In some cases, the child is required to read only the 4 answers and choose the correct ones. These are words that I wouldn't have expected the average first grader to be able to read. There are also sections where he'll have to read a fairly long passage, then read and answer the questions on his own.

I'm hoping that since I'm not going to be the person giving him the test, he'll at least make a good-faith attempt to do the sections. If it was me, I'd probably have a lot of tantruming. He often takes a quick glance at materials and says "I can't do that!" and only realizes he can when I sit next to him and point out that he can.

What I'm worried about is that seeing these sections are going to deflate his ego so much that he'll do poorly on the other sections.

I can choose the order in which to give the sections and we could possibly do it over more than one day. I think that a lot of advice would say to do the hardest stuff first to get it out of the way, but I'm wondering if I should give him the easiest stuff first to build his confidence up, maybe even telling him something like the test will get harder as you go on so that he's expecting it.

Any thoughts on order? I don't think it's dire enough that I need to call them and see if I can exchange the test because I think it's worth it to see how he does on the non-reading activities. I also don't necessarily think that he'll completely bomb the reading sections if he actually tries. I guess we'll see.

I would choose whatever order you think will work best for your ds. I would also not worry over the reading questions - keep in mind that the Terra Nova isn't designed just to check if a group of students has mastered a specific curriculum, it's designed to compare the full spectrum of students at a grade level with national norms - it is designed to show below average to above average performance in each subject. It's not surprising that there are words to choose that the average first grader wouldn't be expected to know - if there weren't higher level words, all the average performing first graders would score in the same range as the higher performing students and you would lose the benefit of the test in terms of understanding where your child's performance is relative to other students in that grade. There's also a wide variety of reading levels in the early elementary years because reading happens developmentally at different ages- so I wouldn't worry to much if a 4.75 year old doesn't score highly on a first grade levels reading assessment. You might find that your 4.75 year old suddenly takes off in reading skills in a few months and overnight is levels ahead of where he is now.

Best wishes,

polarbear

Ps - One thing I'd do before your ds takes the test is to explain how to use a bubble sheet if he has to use one.

Thank you so much polarbear. Your explanation of the test design really made it click for me. I guess I was thinking of it more as a way to show mastery of the year's curriculum.

My layperson thought would to choose the stuff you know he will do well on and present that first. That should build some confidence and even if it doesn't at least it should be unaffected by the meltdown you might see with the harder stuff. I have one kiddo that will just shutdown when presented with harder stuff and that is how I would probably do it with him.

My other thought is, you can obtain these tests (e.g. Terra nova and Iowa tests) and self administer (assuming you have a Bachelor's degree). I did this last fall with three of my kids and it afforded me the opportunity to see how they test and also the opportunity to intervene and "talk them off the ledge" when they hit harder material. I found this more valuable than the actual scores.

Thank you SouthLake. I think that's what I'm leaning towards.

We have ordered the test ourselves and are having a friend administer it. This is partially because my husband *might* think that I somehow helped him, but I also think that having someone else (a friend, who DS knows) do it is also likely to produce a more agreeable attitude. DS is the type of kid who generally enjoys performing for other people (when it's in an official capacity, like this).