Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Portfolio question

When putting together a portfolio would workbook pages showing the child chose to write velociraptor as his short o word be a good this to add? He had to write the short o word that went with the pictures and he got to draw whatever short o word he wanted for the last one. His short i one was ichthyosaurus.

it depends, if its always dinosaurs, i'd hesitate..as a lot of kids seem to be able to remember big dinosaur names as they are so so interesting/reinforcing.. but if its generally big, more mature words, including some dinosaur names, i'd go with it. This is just my hunch on this one.
irene

I disagree. If it's what your child does, send it. Not worth second guessing. And being extremely interested in one thing is something they ask about on the application. I'm sure that's only one example you can include re: his interest in and knowledge about dinosaurs. I can't even spell the second one...

I'm with Questions. If dinosaurs are your kid's thing, include it.

Just remember that you're not trying to demonstrate that your child is "merely" gifted, but that your child is HG+, or beyond the ability of the current testing instruments to get an accurate read. To me, that's the key question to ask yourself when it comes to what to include: does this seem to me to be MG or is it HG+/PG?

I freely admit that's a tough question to answer much of the time, but I think it helps to keep you from including things that are not helpful.

See that's the part I'm just not certain on. I know Wolf and he is my norm. I honestly have no idea if he is MG or higher. I'm guessing higher? But I really don't know and it looks like testing will be an issue for us.

I know what he did and when, all the basics were early, 5 words sentences around 18 months, addition and subtraction up to 10 by 3 or 3.6, learning to read in a month and a half just after he turned 4, etc... I know he is working 1.5 to 2+ grades above his age level (and looking like he will finish most of his 1st grade work by January...). He did have to look up the spellings for the dinosaur names.

Really does anyone have any suggestions on how to tell MG from higher? I'm still dealing with some gifted denial issues I think and I know he is different, but how different is different???

If anyone has submitted supporting portfolio information for an application for an older child I would love to hear any suggestions for the types of information you included!

Thanks
Grif

My understanding with the DYS application was to send in portfolio pieces 2 to 3 years ahead. I thought this was PG work??????

I would agree, CFK, that 3 years ahead at age 4 or 5 is a bigger deal than 3 years ahead in upper elementary. I think that's a good point. Especially without both types of test scores to back you up, I think you want to show as much advancement as possible.

I don't think DYS *requires* all work at 4 or 5 years ahead of grade level, but personally, I don't think I'd submit anything that was "only" 2 years ahead. (Wih the understanding that 2 years ahead is a gifted kid!)

Again, remember that you want to demonstrate to DITD that your child is PG, not MG. I'd suggest looking at the most advanced work your child does and submitting that.

Sorry to hijack this a bit, but I have a question re this. My oldest dd, whose IQ tested at 132 on the WISC-IV at age 7 (so MG, I believe, albeit with wild variations btwn 25th to 99.9th w/in subtests), has numerous achievement scores that are more than 4 yrs above grade level, but she is not PG.

The first set of achievement scores that we got (WJ-III) in 2nd grade that would really give us grade level (not how an avg 6th grader would have tested on a 2nd grade test for instance as many of the school grade level achievement tests tell you), put her writing at grade 18+ and many of the other language arts pieces (reading, spelling type of things) more than 4 grades above 2nd grade. Math calculation was right at grade level and the other math piece maybe 2 grades above her current grade, so overall her composite was 5th grade (3 grades above level).

In 4th grade, she had two scores (English and Science) on the EXPLORE that easily qualified for DYS, but she only did so-so on the math part and left crying & went to the bathroom during reading and didn't finish it, so that was also an avg score. Overall, she still made the awards ceremony, though.

In 6th (after skipping a grade), she was still more than 4 grades above level on a reading achievement test (something like 12 grades above level, which was around the ceiling of the test).

Given that this is not a PG/DYS child, how much can we rely on achievement above grade level to predict whether a child is PG? Or is it just that the child needs to be 5+ grades above level in all subjects to be PG?

Dottie - can I ask a follow-up question? When you say that half of the GT 5th/6th grade kids test upper end high school, what kind of testing does that mean? The grade equivalencies on the WJ-III, for example, or something like mean scores on SAT or other upper high school tests, or something else?

Thanks for any additional info you could provide! Still trying to figure it all out ...