Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment WJ-IV Achievement results

We just got my 5 year old son's school gifted assessment results. His IQ was not quite as high as we thought it might be, although he does pass the threshold for gifted services from school, which is what matters right now. His WJ-IV achievement results are higher than IQ, close to the DYS qualifying range. He has Broad Mathematics of 147, Written Language of 143, and Reading of 136. There was no total achievement score reported. DYS criteria call for 2 of those 4 (math, reading, written language, or total) to be above 145. Is it possible to calculate the total achievement based on the reported scores (we have subtests as well, if it matters?). Seems unlikely it would be 145+, but I thought I'd ask. Our kid has been such a puzzle, I'd been hoping he would qualify for DYS so we could access a family consultant.

If those are the only cluster scores you have, then you do not have enough subtests to derive Broad Achievement (which is the total achievement score that appears to be allowed). You also need Sentence Reading Fluency and Sentence Writing Fluency, in which case you would also have the possibility of a qualifying Broad Written Language score.

Excellent scores, though! And he's still little.

Thanks for your reply, aeh! You are correct, we don't have subtest scores for Sentence Writing Fluency or Sentence Reading Fluency. I wonder if it's worth asking the psychologist to add those two subtests. DS's written language so far showed a huge spread on the subtests, with a 157 on spelling and a 127 on writing samples. Which one of these more closely resembles sentence writing fluency?

Similarly, he was very high on letter-word identification (147) but not as high on passage comprehension. Which one of these would be more closely related to sentence reading fluency?

Thanks again, aeh!

Neither writing subtest is necessarily that close to SWF, which is scored purely on the number of words (accurate or inaccurate) generated in response to the prompts during the allowed time. SRF is more closely associated with comprehension than with word identification, in most school-age readers.