Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Raven's Test - What to expect & when to test

Hi. We are looking into moving our son from a private school into public school next year. Our school district has some schools with well regarded Seminar Gate programs which you must test into with a 99.9% Raven's score. He's in second grade now and the Seminar program begins in 3rd grade. I know it may seem early but there's a lot of research to do regarding which schools, how competitive they are to get into, etc. and applications are due in Feb.

He has never had any type of IQ test but his current school does give the WIAT to all students annually. I don't know how much to hope he will test into Seminar but would love to hear any opinions on score translation (from WIATIII to Raven's) based on the below. I know there's no exact translation, but understanding the probabilities will help us decide which 3 schools we will apply for.

Also, would love any thoughts on when to have him take the Raven's test. He just turned 6.5 last week. He can take the test anytime from next month through next June (he'll turn 7 in March.) I have heard that younger is better???

Thanks in advance for any thoughts.

WIATIII Scores, test administered 6 years, 2 months
**Below scores are consistent with WIATII administered at 4yrs 3 months and 5 yrs 1 month

Reading Comprehension 157 / 99.9%
Math Problem Solving 160 / >99.9 (don't know what the ">" means)
Word Reading 146 / 99.9
Numerical Operations 160/ >99.9
Oral Reading Fluency 144 / 99.8%
Spelling 160 / >99.9%
Math Fluency - Addition 160 / >99.9
Math Fluency - Subtraction 154 / >99.9%

These are very good scores. It is difficult to back-predict what his Raven's scores would be. I can give you a ballpark, though, based on standard errors. The Raven's has a standard error of about 3-4, so the 95% confidence interval would be about +/- 7. On the WIAT-III, oral reading fluency has a 95% confidence interval of +/- 7. 7+7+7=21, suggesting a likely lower limit for the Raven's of around 125, which would be the 95th %ile. Running through the other subtests, I get lower limits for the Raven's between 125 and 140 (99.6%ile), with math slanting toward the higher end, and reading toward the lower end. Your upper limit would be 160, >99.9 %ile across the board. I would expect the math scores to be better predictors of the Raven's, as math draws more on visual/nonverbal cognitive abilities.

Bottom line, the predicted Raven's is somewhere between 125 (95 %ile) and 160 (>99.9 %ile). Not all that helpful, I know.

ETA: Probably leaning toward the 160 end of the range, but how heavily, I couldn't say.

Which version of the Raven's do they give? The colored (CPM) runs from age 5 to age 11, so, yes, earlier is better, or he'll run into the test ceiling. The standard (SPM) starts from age six, and goes up to age 16+.

We're in the same school district and I was told at the meeting for GATE parents of newly identified students that the 99.9 percentile roughly corresponds to IQ of 145. I don't know how that corresponds to the test you have, however. The thing about Seminar is that you don't necessarily have to be Seminar identified to be in a Seminar classroom. Depending on the school, there may not be enough students to fill a class so other students who scored close may be put in the class as well. The test will be normed to children the exact age of your son when he takes it, so I don't think whether now or June will make that much of a difference in that regard. Of course the sooner he tests the sooner you get the score. Having that knowledge before choice apps are due is definitely helpful, we didn't get our daughter's score until late May.

aeh - thank you so much for the explanation. It is quite helpful.

The district uses the SPM so I infer that there is no benefit to testing sooner rather than later.

Any chance you are familiar with there being a test ceiling on the WIAT? I ask because the one area where his score differed from prior scores was in reading (10+ points lower.) I met with the test administrator, mostly because I wanted to understand the WIATIII, and also asked about the score decline.

She pulled his test to show me specifically how he had hit the "ceiling" in Reading Comprehension and Oral Reading Fluency, which can result in lost points and therefore a lower score. For comprehension, he had answered the question "What time" in the afternoon did the story take place as "I'm not sure, 4:00 or 5:00." The correct answer was "late" afternoon, but he answered the question too literally.

For fluency, she said the text was simply to easy for him and his eyes were too far ahead of his verbalization of the text, resulting in "errors." For example, where a sentence said "It is..." he said "It's".

Is there validity to this "ceiling" theory? If so, it may further influence our selection of schools to apply for. While regardless we won't know if he gets into Seminar until he actually takes the test and the results are in, you only get to put in for 3 schools. So ya gotta choose wisely!

Thanks for the info HID! I had heard that seminar placement was a possibility based on teacher/principal recommendation, space permitting. Good to know this is indeed true and actually helps with our decision making.

The only seminar school in our cluster is Grant, so if he tests in he would automatically be given a spot, no application necessary. Now if he doesn't test in, it would be a longshot since Grant has the lowest choice acceptance rate outside of the La Jolla schools. So we are looking at Silver Gate and Sunset View, Pt. Loma cluster, as our 1 and 2 picks. They both have 900+ API's, seminar programs and high choice acceptance rates. I think we also stand a better chance of getting into seminar there should he not automatically test in since 3 of the 6 Pt. Loma cluster schools offer seminar. Classes may not be as filled.

Any chance you are familiar with any of these programs?

WIAT-III ceiling:

Yes, there is a definite ceiling effect for high-performers, particularly in reading comprehension and oral reading fluency, which are item set-based, and don't have the usual basal and ceiling rules. No matter how high your level of functioning is, every child of a certain age/grade completes the same item set. (If you are below, there are drop-back rules, within some limits.) (And, btw, I would have given him the points for 4 or 5 o'clock, as long as he also indicated that it was p.m. Probably would have queried for that clarification, too.) Did she show you the difference between oral reading rate and accuracy? Sometimes that's an indicator of rushing or carelessness, when the rate is far above the accuracy.

ETA: I should also note that the ceiling for ORF gets lower as you get older, because of the natural ceiling for the skill. (Normative adult level oral reading fluency is not substantially different from early adolescent ORF. Pre-third grade ORF is much more varied than post-third grade/fluent reader level ORF.)

Thanks again aeh - you are a wealth of information.

Your post is interesting because it infers that there is some latitude in the administration/scoring of the test, which is definitively in opposition to what the administrator told me.

As for the late afternoon question, it went like this (she showed me the test and had detailed notes with quotations):

He was read a passage, the story occurred in the late afternoon. He was asked a 2 point question - when did the story occur? He said "in the afternoon" and was given 1 point. She followed up with what "time" in the afternoon? He replied with "I'm not sure. 4:00 or 5:00." She told me this was incorrect and had not given the other point. I'm not one to fight for points but did question whether this wasn't a correct answer since she asked for the "time" - as opposed to asking "when" in the afternoon. She said that per the test instructions she has very specific follow up questions she is allowed to ask. And only very specific answers can be marked as correct. Anyway, it ultimately doesn't really matter. But again, it is interesting because your posting does suggest some latitude is permissible when administering/scoring.

I'm looking at his report now. His Oral Reading Accuracy score was 127 / 96%. His Oral Reading Rate was 160 / >99.9%. Sounds like you are spot on about the rushing.

Grnflash, I don't know specifically about the schools you mentioned but I'd like to invite you to come to a GATE District Advisory Committee meeting. The next one is on Oct. 13th. It's a great place to meet other parents with GATE children and also talk to district personnel. If you go to the district website under the GATE department you can find the information about the committee. It's a parent group and anyone is welcome to come.

I have heard that there are some schools that fill in their Seminar classes with Cluster kids too soon and then say they are full. They are not supposed to do that.