Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment WJ iii Ach question(s)

A little background first-my 8yo daughter Piper was tested last year in school with the Otis Lennon and Stanford-Binet. I had asked about getting her tested in the fall, and was told they only test in the spring, basically. When her results came back she did not qualify for GT, which I'll admit threw me for a loop, the kid was reading Harry Potter. I expressed some concern about the testing method-ie, large group, and she's on a number of meds that cause distractibility. I was told she could re-test the beginning of this school year. Long story short she was only in the classroom for about two weeks at the beginning of the year due to health issues, and has been on homebound instruction since.

Next year (she'll be 4th grade) we're going back to the classroom. During her last hospital admission (she has Cystic Fibrosis), the hospital teacher expressed an interest in testing her! I agreed (maybe somewhat eagerly, lol), and she was given the WJ iii Achievement test. Here are some of her scores...

Total Achievement-148
Broad Reading- 152
Broad Math- 127
Broad Written Language- 138
Academic Skills- 136
Academic Fluency- 154

I was actually a bit surprised her math was as high as it was, lol! I was not surprised by the reading scores. I guess my question is whether the school should still hassle me about getting her into GT with these scores? (We're in VA). I would also think her reading scores would qualify her for differentiated ed at the least? Also, I don't have the grade equivalencies, and am curious about where they would fall..is there a conversion chart or anything of that nature I could use? I would just hate to hassle the hospital teacher about it.
Thank you all so much, I just want to be prepared when I speak to the school about it, they tend to brush off GT as "no big deal", when I know Piper is bored stiff half the time.

-Amanda

Any way the hopsital teacher would give her an IQ test as well? The WISC would be a good choice since she has already done the SB.

Those are indeed very strong scores overall!

School might be hesitant (for whatever dumb reason) to pay attention to tests not given by them; but I would absolutely bring those up to the principal. I would also check what the requirements for the GT program are. Some SD do take outside testing and others do not.

The school district uses a combination of test scores (most weight), gpa, and teacher recommendation. The hospital teacher probably would do a WISC, but I'm hoping we won't be there again in the near future, lol. Out of curiousity I just looked at the homepage for her school's GT program, and there are only 7!! students in it..the school population is 200+. I do know she barely missed the cut-off even with the off OL and S-B last year.

Thank you so much, Dottie. I know the WJ was Form A, but I don't know if that tells you anything or not, lol. It was the Stanford-10 that she was given, I have the scaled scores, but they're pretty much greek to me.

Thank you I will look into getting either the WISC-IV or SB-5 done the next time she's inpatient, it's not something I can fund, and I have a feeling the school wouldn't either. Her total on the OLSAT was 121, but she does not seem to test well in a group setting, as I mentioned before. Thank you again for your help.