Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school Prep Help for Prek 4 Testing

Hi, All. I have a dd age 4y4m. I wasn't going to test her, but apparently the only free prek I can get her into is GT only. We waitlisted for the other schools that are not GT. So, she will have to take the WPPSII (3?) and the Woodcock. My older dd, age 8, took this and was assigned a 135 IQ. The two kiddos are not alike. While dd2 is bright, if she is, it is less obvious. She does do many amazing things. Her drawings are like those of a 2nd grader. However, she doesn't know ANY sight words. She can do a 100 piece puzzle or more, but misses some of the letters of the alphabet. DD1 had the alphabet down at 18 months and was reading full on books at 3. So, I have my doubts. This is about $10700 on the line. Any ideas for how to help her?? I have about 3-4 weeks. I should add that I am a teacher with a wealth of materials.

Thanks!!

There is not anything you can do except make sure she has a good nights sleep, is fed and not stressed. If she is an active child some exercise before hand might be good. I wouldn't base anything on your comparison with your older child though. Statistically she is probably within 10 points (assuming a full sibling) but you can't know until you test.

I hear ya. I just recall dd1 being annoyed that she said one of the words wrong on the reading list and flat out refusing to read any more words because of this. So, I wondered if actually practicing Dolch words or whatnot would be in any way helpful. She has already done prescreening. I was told she would likely fall at 2 standard deviations above, but not necessarily the 3 SDs required for our preK. So frustrating!

I personally don't think there's much you can do to prep for the WISC or WJ other than get a good night's sleep and let your child know something about where they are going, that they'll be talking to a person who will have questions for them, that they'll probably get to answer some fun questions, and not to worry if they don't know an answer.

However - I would also reassure you about one thing - not all HG/EG/PG kids start reading early or verbalize amazing thoughts at a young age etc. Your description of your dd is very similar to my EG ds at the same age:


Try not to worry too much about the testing - I know that's easier said than done, but really and truly, while reading at 2 is a sign that a child is most likely gifted, *not* reading at two, and not knowing all your alphabet at 4... doesn't mean a chid is *not* gifted. If anything, it just means they are potentially less likely recognized as being gifted because our society has this expectation that "gifted" means "early reading, little professor" etc.

Best wishes,

polarbear

Ditto above posters comments. FWIW, our PG child didn't really start reading until about age 5. Then he consumed all the books in the children's section in a school year (only a slight exaggeration). So as mentioned above, not reading at that age doesn't equal not very gifted.