Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Achievement testing in a pre-K child

My son (just turned 5) is having his Woodcock Johnson III achievement testing done in two weeks. He tested well on the SB-5 and I would like to start the application process to the DYS program. I have read in a few places that achievement testing can be harder for children who have not had formal schooling (although he currently attends a Montessori program). Is there truth to this for those of you who's children took this test (or a similar test)?

My son has a gift for math and I have shown him all the proper ways that math problems are written. Is there any thing else that I should know?

My son was tested at 5 years 3 months (WJ-III). He is in K in Montessori but it's his first year there. I think there wouldn't be too much difference between him and my son. I must add though that my son was exposed to regular workbooks at home, not that he would have got too close to them though

I don't think you need to do anything special. One note though. The psychologist didn't give him one of the writing subtests (he took 2 out of 3) so he doesn't have writing cluster score nor does he have the total achievement score. His broad math score is very high and we hope he will get accepted to DYS based on this score. His Academic skills score and Brief Achievement are really high, I just wish we had the whole picture so to speak.

We asked her about it later on and were told that she gave him all the tests typically given to a 5 year old. You may want to talk to the psychologist ahead of the time and request all the scores. Good luck with the test.

BTW Do you intend to keep him in Montessori for Kindergarten?

I agree it's probably easier to get higher scores early on but I think you get pretty good idea where your child is by looking at the grade level equivalents. I wish we could get the test done every year just to know where it is. That said if my son's grade equivalent for math is 3.8 it doesn't mean that there are no gaps. The test can test only so much without being way too long.

At 5 you need to know much more than basic reading to get 200. I must admit though that our son did worse on the reading test than we expected (around 3rd grade scores). It makes me wonder what he did on the comprehension part.

Let me write down a few scores and grade equivalents to give you a better idea.

Broad Math 3.8 160
Calculation 3.8 143
Math Fluency 2.9 137
Applied Problems 4.1 169

My son's fluency levels were usually lower than the rest of his scores. The scores are timed and I think that's where going to school helps. You can be a great speller but if you write slowly you won't fit too many sentences in a given time frame.

Spelling 4.0 162
Writing Fluency 1.9 124

I don't know if you want to talk to your son about it or if the time pressure would just make him more nervous. In math you can ask for another problem if the given one is too hard.

Broad Reading 2.9 132
Letter-Word Identification 3.2 142
Reading Fluency 3.3 145
Passage Comprehension 2.1 131

He has been reading chapter books since the age of 3 so we expected his reading scores higher overall. The passage comprehension took us by surprise but then so did his Applied Problems in math I would love to know how he did on the comprehension. You know if he didn't do too well because he couldn't or because he was too tired or didn't pay attention or ...


Encore starts at 2nd grade, right? Is there something else?

Thanks for the scores and explanations. It really helps.

I don't expect many high reading, spelling or fluency scores as my son has only been reading for about 9 months and is currently comfortable at a late first grade, early second grade leveled book on a good day.

I am still think he is way above grade level in math though as he can easily multiply and divide in his head and he recently taught himself negative numbers and operations with them. We've also looked a lot at fractions, percents and decimals in the past month at his request. He also can count money and tell time to the minute. Math problems are like my son's candy---he can't get enough.

I meant Explore. I shouldn't be posting and preparing New Year party at the same time. Obviously I am not the one who could be accepted to DYS unless absentmindedness counts


My thoughts exactly. We even sent an e-mail to the psychologist asking about the composite score since like you said it seemed too low but she said it was correct. Perhaps the comprehension score weights heavily in and the others are not as important.


With this knowledge he should do great. Let us know how it goes. My guess would be that your son is very likely to get a score over 145. I wish all of us lived close to each other. I bet our sons would have lots of to talk about.

Happy New Year to everybody.

We are back from the testing and my tester feels that my son's scores were too high. She did the norms based on age (5 years 1 month) rather than grade since the computer scoring program wouldn't let her put in a grade of Pre-K. She gave him all the subtests but we only got Broad Math and Broad Written Language scores. For some reason it didn't show a broad reading or total achievement score--she thinks one of the subtests isn't normed to his age. She is going to review everything with another tester before she declares the numbers final. At this point I do think we have enough to submit to DYS.

We also learned that even though our son did well score-wise on the written sections he was extremely frustrated, almost to tears at one point. He just doesn't like writing at all. We really haven't asked him to write much so this was a little surprising. It was helpful to know because if we do pursue a skip to grade 1 we might need to take the next 6 months and work on his writing skills.

That sounds really promising. Did she give you any ideas what the numbers are or not yet?

Interesting that you got score for Broad Written Language but not the Broad Reading, my son had it the other way around. He wasn't given one of the written language subtests.

Time to start working on the DYS application

The reading fluency is the one that is preventing a full score.

His Broad Math was 182 (>99.9%) and his Broad Written Language was 150 (>99.9%).

The tester just felt these score were too high to really mean anything. She hasn't tested many kids on this test that are less than 6 years old.

Those are great numbers! I thought my son did really well with his 160 What GE did he get? I would suggest that not only you grade skip him to 1st but that you skip him in math even higher. I saw what they teach in math in the 1st grade and it's so easy.

My son would be bored even with the 2nd grade math and his score was lower (Broad Math GE 3.8) than your son's score. I think by September I will feel about the 3rd grade the same way.

Our tester just gave us a score sheet with age equivalents not grade equivalents. His age equivalent for Broad Math was 8-4 and his Broad Written Language was 6-8. Even though the Total Achievement and Broad Reading did not have standard scores they did have an age equivalents listed at 7-3 and 7-2 respectively.

It seems he is 2-3 years above age level based on the WJ-III. His IQ testing gave age equivalents 2-4 years above age level. I am thinking K will not be the right place for him in Sept '08.

I don't have the age equivalents just grade equivalents.

8-4 would be towards the end of 2nd grade, wouldn't it? I think I am getting more and more confused about the tests.

Dottie how does it work with the scores? Is there a difference if you base the results on the age of the tested child or if you base it on the grade? It depends on the age regardless, doesn't it? DS was 5 and 3 months when tested on WJ-III and it seems like there is quite difference between being 5-1 and 5-3.

Was your son already in K when tested? Could that have made a difference?

Thanks for looking Dottie!

It is very hard testing kids this young. I think that's why my tester didn't like that the score were so high. She understands about DYS and was happy that we got qualifying scores but I completely understand that the actual numbers aren't as important. I know my son is bright. I know he knows more than an average 5 year old. I am satisfied with the results.

It will be interesting to see how he scores a few years from now. That will be more accurate of his strengths and weaknesses.

This makes perfect sense and that's what I thought. If this wasn't true I would be really pulling my hair off.


You mean that I would get different results using the same test scores if I normed them against my son's age than if I normed them against his grade? (I would still get the same GE but different scale and %) I would probably get very different scale numbers? That's insane. I mean the same child, the same raw scores, the same GE but different numbers?

It makes me wonder if the psychologist based my son's scores on grade since crisc mentioned that the tester couldn't put the grade equivalent in and had to use the age. Looking at our numbers it's probably the case: 2 months of age difference, a huge scale difference and 9 months in GE just don't add up. If you talk about 5.1 and average K then it's a different age story.

I am not hunting for higher numbers, I really am not. I just want to get a clue how things work. It's my math/logic background talking. I need to know how things work I assumed that the test was based on the age only and gives only one result but 2 different scales ... This makes it even harder to compare any results.


Honestly, the only thing which matters right now is the DYS score. The school cares about GE anyway. I assume the numbers will come down and I better not to even think that age wise his numbers could have been most likely much higher. That would probably freak me out I am scared about his school future as it is.

crisc, wouldn't it be lovely to get our sons together? I think they would have lots of to talk about

fwiw, DS was given the WIAT-II last year and the pyschologist could calculate scores compared to both kids his exact age, and kids in his exact grade position. I suppose if your child isn't in a grade yet, they only can compare to the same age.

Congradulations Crisc!What a relief to have the scores you knew were 'in there.'

I'm sorry that you had to get the painful report about his writing. I think a little 'hothousing' on writing is in order, and you can certianly ask her for ideas. I also would be sure to sit in on a normal 1st grade class and see how much writing is expected - it may be much less than he had to do on the test. Writing seems to be that last skill to catch up, because I think, it is so common for the expectation to be high, and the brain to be wizzing. It reminds me of typing emails on a number pad of a cell phone. I find myself picking my words really carefully, and my quality drops!

See if you can get more details on what caused the tears, but I wouldn't rule out a first grade placement. I'm still of the opinion that if a skip is needed, the sooner the better. Grade skips are perfect because the development is so asynchronous, but a little hot housing and some honest talking goes a long way, IMHO.

Smiles,
Grinity

crisc - I wouldn't rule out 1st grade placement either just based on some of writing of little boys on the wall I see outside my son's 1st grade class! Much of it is NOT pretty!

Kumon has some really good stepwise handwriting workbooks out there that my kids have done for fun.

Crisc,

My DD was reading 4th grade level when she started 1st grade. However, since she had never attended school, writing her name was all the writing she could do. She caught up rather quickly and it was never a problem. So go for that 1st grade placement, I don't think 1st graders are expected to know how to write.

When my DS started K his handwriting was no good at all. He could write letters but his own way, you know writing line the opposite direction. I never bothered to correct that, silly me. Also he had no idea how to write on the lines, his letters were all over the place. Pretty soon I heard that he needed lots of work on his fine motor skills. It took me a while to explain them that he was 5 after all and it didn't matter how much he could read or count, he had hands of a 5 year old.

That said his handwriting has improved dramatically in last few months. He writes slowly but he writes pretty good letters, even his teachers say so now. A year ago he would type on the computer most of the time, now he mostly writes.

I think your son will be ok. Let him write shopping list for you, list of things to do, thank you cards, letters to grandma ... He goes to Montessori, right? Ask them if they could give him more handwriting practice. You have plenty of time till September.

Hi,
I continue to be frustrated by my own inability to understand these tests and what they mean. Dottie, you are really the resident expert in this forum.

Reading about scores of the other children, I went and pulled out our WJIII for some comparison and I have more questions than answers. I would appreciate some clarification related to our own personal numbers from Dottie or anyone one else who actually gets it, since I clearly don't. :-)

Our son took the test when he was 4.4 years old. We were told we couldn't get scaled scores for anything but Oral Language - the scaled score was 141 but his AE was 8.3 and his GE was 2.7. It says the percentile rank for this is 99.7%. If I understood the thread correctly, if my son was younger than someone else with the same AE and GE, his scaled score should be higher with all other things being equal. Is that correct?
We only have AE and GE for everything else.
TAch - 7.3 and 1.9
Broad Reading - 7.6 and 2.2
Broad Math - 7.2 and 1.8
Broad WL - 6-10 and 1.4

Is there anyway to draw comparisons from AE and GE with children of different ages, and how will Davidson interpret this if they are looking for composite scores?
Thanks in advance.

Hi Dottie,
We did do WIAT when he was 4.10. (These were both done for entry into a gifted school). We were not able to get composite scores for that either (except for Word Reading and the Oral Language section). We have AE and GE for most all. I will provide here in case you can offer something by way of what the scaled scores would be if he was older. The psychologist mentioned in her report she gave him subtests that are not traditionally given at his age.

In Reading:
Word Reading: - 160 - 9.0 and 3.6
Reading Comprehension - 9.8 and 4.4
Pseudoword Decoding - 13.4 and 4.6

In Math:
Numerical Operation - 8.0 and 3.0
Math Reasoning - 8.4 and 2.9

In Writing:
Spelling - 7.9 and 2.2
Written Expression 6.4 and 1.5

In Oral Language we did get a composite of 137
Listening comprehension was 139 6.0 and 3.5
Oral Expression was 119 - 9.0 and 1.7 (This seems off-base to me)
The Psychologist wrote that "his Oral Expression and Writing, while above the level expected for his age, could cause him difficulty in an accelerated program. These areas of lower functioning appear to reflect his age appropriate motor skills and brain development rather than areas of learning deficit and are likely to be as well developed as his other skills as his brain continues to mature and he is exposed to more experience
and information."

Thanks

Thanks Dottie,
I am only really making myself crazy over this because of the wait from DYSP. It appears that they letters were mailed Friday so I should know something today. If my son is not accepted, hopefully they will offer some insight as to why and I can stop trying to read too much into the tests and the scores.

Well said Dottie! So true! I think that since there is no accepted breakdown of LOG, that everyone has to come up with their own mental scale, that suits their own needs.

Here's mine, FWIW,

1-2 Standard Deviations above the mean - Bright. Keep an eye out for areas of giftedness that need extra nurturing, or, actual 2E.

2 to 2.5 SD above the mean - MG. Has special learning needs, but often can tolerate them being addressed 'part-time.' Because this is the bulk of gifted children, and they can be expected to enjoy pull outs and most gifted programs with agemates. They will score around the mean of Talent Search tests. Keep an eye out for areas of extreme giftedness for extra nurturing, or 2E. Stay on the look out for afterschool/summer activites or in school situations if possible,where child gets a chance to 'learn to struggle.'

2.5 to 3 SD - HG. Has special learning needs, full time. Depending on personality these children may enjoy or be very unhappy in regualar classrooms or programs aimed at MG if placed with agemates. Probably need modifications, such as subject acceleration, grade skips, as well as out of school intellectual experinces.

above 3SD - PG, too high to measure. Has special learning needs, full time. There is considerable variation inside this group, and overlap with stratagies used with HG. May be 2E, or have a 'bottleneck' area. Can be 'mild' or 'wild.' Personality matters. Ability to self direct their own learning varies. Ability to blend in varies.

Well, there it is! I'm guessing each of us needs our own mental model of the flavors in the box.

Smiles,
Grinity

I just wanted to update to let you know that my tester was using old norms. Calculation with the new norms seem more realistic and we still have qualifying Broad Math scores---just not as ridiculously high (157). She didn't given me the new AEs for the scores yet though. I will get that in the report later this week.

Now to begin filling out the application. Fun, fun.

Thanks for the update. That explains the discrepancy. I was getting worried that my son's scores might have been off. Not a good thought since we sent the application to DYS last week.

Good luck with the application.

My tester actually sent me that today.

She was surprised that while the norming sample had a decrease of -1 to -5 on various subtests from th 5 years old age group, my son had some that were -30. She plans to add some of the statistical stuff to the report.

I betray my ignorance, but wha-huh?

crisc, Dottie, anyone else: Care to teach clueless ol' English-y me some stats? You'd have my gratitude!

Happy Hump Day!

It just means that while the norm sample may have dropped 1 to 5 points (ex 130 to a 127, 157-154, etc) when they calculate the standard score from the raw score, one of my sons score dropped from the 180's to the 150's with the new scoring norms.

In very basic English, as I understand, it seems that every few years the population changes and tests must be re-normed to provide better accuracy. It can however affect the scores of certain populations.

Hopefully someone else may have a better explanation.

Thanks for the link Dottie. It's interesting how they change the weights of different categories based on the census.


The thing is that -5 is an average difference. -5 is actually a huge % difference if applied to score of 100. Going from 100 to 95 means going from 50% to 36.9%. The changes around 100 are probably smaller, I just wanted to show the difference.

When you start looking at the other end of the curve, 5 points won't take you too far. 182 to 177 is 99.9999977% to 99.999986% that's a negligible difference not to mention that it cannot be measured anyway. It's not that surprising that the difference is much higher there.

Even though the jump from 182 to 157 sounds enormous but the difference is in 0.001 (from 99.99999 to 99.99276). Nobody can measure even that. Normal distribution is a nice model and it works really well for huge majority of the people, but it falls apart on both ends of the curve simply because the testing samples can be only that big.

Earlier quote:

Looking at score changes in crisc's son's test, I would think that 200 scores will be quite rare now. When you see one, it may be worth asking when the test was performed and if the updated tables were used. On the other hand I could see how it was possible to get close to 200 with the old norms at the age 3 to 5. Looking at the changes my guess would be that 3-4 got hit even harder than 5.

Much better explanation LMom.

30 points doesn't seem like so much in the 0.001%. Thanks for the clarification. I don't have a table to know what scores give what percentile but that really makes sense considering 145 is considered 99.9%

Here you go
http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/IQtable.aspx

There is also rarity part - 1 out of ... Take a deep breath before you look up 157 The thing is nobody can really tell above certain point. It's more for fun than anything else It does come handy in 130's though.

Thanks for the explanations. I always feel like such a dolt around these things!

Thank you everyone for this thread. Though I am finding it confusing with new scales. I though highest 0.2 percentiles was 152+ IQ but according to the link it is 144.

And another thread mentioned that a child didn't get into DYS with a 145. Was that because of old scales or their acceptance is a higher requirement?

Ren

I agree. I am sure there are amazing kids. I've read about some of them and they do take my breath away with their reading abilities. I wanted to say that with the changes it probably takes a lot to achieve such a score. It's not just knowing how to read a little bit and being 4. KWIM?

Either way it would probably make much more sense if the test stopped at 4-5SD with scores 160+ or 175+. Oh perhaps they should use DYS kids as a testing sample and come up with some meaningful numbers. LOL.

Dottie,
I have been trying to get my hands on any data indicating that the WPPSI III scores tend to be inflated. Any ideas on where I might find it? I know you are very tuned into this information.
Thanks

I'm in the middle of reading it, Dottie, and it is a good article. I got a kick out of this sentence though:

"Young children are notoriously variable in their response to unfamiliar situations and they are vulnerable to disorganization by...rampant hedonism."

Rampant hedonism? ROTFL! Aren't we all vulnerable to disorganization brought on by rampant hedonism?

Pardon the interruption. I just had to share! Carry on!

Oh yes! At that age they would rather make a good pun than get a high score, yes?
Smiles,
grin