Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment WPPSI/WIAT results -- does this seem to jive?

Hi all! I was a regular poster years ago when my 15yo DYS was being identified -- I'm back with new questions!

I have DD, 4y2m. Based on her development, and a successful K skip for my untested 6yo (going into third grade), and a hellish K experience for my DYS at 5yo, we've enrolled her in kindergarten this fall (thank heavens for flexible schools!). However, we're considering a move and wanted to get scores squared away just in case we needed to make a case with any new school administration. It's earlier than I wanted, but such is life.

My DD's scores have me flummoxed:

(scores redacted for privacy)

We knew she was highly verbal, so the VCI isn't surprising. However, she is a spontaneous reader, and learned using whole words versus phonics. Even though one reads words, the act of reading itself isn't verbal, right? I feel like it's more of a visual information and working memory skill? So her precocious reading doesn't seem to jive with her only truly high VCI.

Just to be clear -- I know that enriched environments can contribute to early reading skills. I'm sure that played a part, but believe me when I say that we don't "work with" our kids -- the extent of reading instruction is *sometimes* a book at bedtime and turning on the closed captioning for her princess shows! I work full-time and it's hard enough to spend any quality time with my kids. She wasn't taught at daycare;they didn't know she could read until a month ago.

So -- What strengths on IQ testing point toward precocious reading? What were your precocious reader's tested strengths? My DYS was also a precocious reader but his scores were universally high.

My son started decoding at age 2 (he had some casual instruction from me) and was able to read fluently on a first grade level at age 3. When he was tested with the WISC IV at age 7, the PRI and WMI were his strongest index scores. His VCI was surprisingly low (though still technically in the gifted range) given how verbal he has been throughout his life (he's 15 now).

I would agree not to get too hung up on the specifics of preschool-age testing, but FWIW, her strengths (both in the GT range) are in language and abstract reasoning, the latter of which is pretty good for just about all kinds of learning, since it's largely about concept formation and pattern recognition. She's age-normative in the tasks with the most fine-motor demands, which is likely why she was essentially average in spelling and math calculations, both paper and pencil tasks.

I do have subtest scores:

Subtest: scaled score/percentile:

(Scores edited for privacy)

I was also surprised by her Block Design score -- she's a decent puzzle assembler who has been doing 80-piece puzzles for a year now!

Block Design is timed, and I think that Bug Search, Cancellation and Animal Coding are also timed subtests. I wouldn't necessarily worry about lower scores on timed tests for a 4 year old, she was most likely just blissfully unaware that moving faster would result in a potentially higher score

Best wishes,

polarbear

Oh ... timed subtests! That could mean a lot.

I'm not worried -- more surprised. Given her sight reading and puzzle ability (not over the top, but fairly advanced) I thought her visual-spatial would test higher.

I have a follow-up convo scheduled with her tester tomorrow evening, just thought I'd reach out here first for thoughts. Thank you for the input!

Puzzle ability does align with Object Assembly. BD is a bit different.

One other question -- would these scores *stop* you from placing her in kindergarten this fall? My almost-7yo was skipped at a small parochial school based on teacher assessment, no testing requested, and he's thriving academically and socially, going into third grade. My 4yo is definitely more advanced than he was at this age. The administration didn't hesitate to place this one in K next year based on their own screening -- but the principal is changing next year and I don't know that the new one will be as receptive to a future skip if we pass this up now.

This girl is a highly social people-pleaser who is used to a school environment, on the bigger size for her age, and very confident.

I wouldn't see the results as obstacles to a skip in and of themselves, especially when the school is comfortable with it. Hope your conversation with the examiner was productive.

It was, actually! She said she confidently expected that the lower VS scores would go up if we tested again in a year.

She also said that she didn't include standard scores for the math (something about giving reading the reading portion out-of-level since 4yos aren't supposed to read, and needing to choose one age for the whole WIAT), but she did run the math numbers for age. The standard score for math reasoning was 159 -- which surprised me!

Considering the whole picture, she said she wouldn't hesitate to enroll DD in K this year, and even used the phrase "bored out of her mind" to describe what the experience might be like even this year, let alone next year. School had absolutely no qualms about early entry for her. So we're going forward, and DD starts K next week!