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

I don't know much about the various tests and this is the first time I've received any scores (other than WISC-IV/WIAT-II a couple years ago), so please bear with me.

DS10 in 6th grade (grade-skipped) had scores on the TerraNova of 98% for math and 93% for reading. Not knowing anything other than TN is an achievement test, what do these numbers tell me? Is there more info that I should/could obtain?

He also informed me that he completed the TerraNova and his state assessments in one session and doesn't need to report for the second one (??). He has 'exceeding' scores on the state assessments. This is the first time we've been provided scores for these tests, and I'm not exactly sure what to make of them.

Any insight is appreciated. Thanks.

I'm not familiar with TerraNova itself, but it is an achievement test that is designed to measure how much of grade level material the child knows. We tend to think that any child should do better on easy tests than hard tests, but HG kids sometimes do worse with tests that are easy because the easy questions confuse them. My DH calls this 'overthinking' the test. There is also the problem that easy questions are boring and hard to consentrate on. I think that the fact that the numbers are in the top 10% mean that the 6th grade work is certianly not too hard for your child. That is pretty much all you can see from this sort of test with a gifted child. You can't say he is properly challenged because 93% is so far away from 100%. It is possible.

You might want to talk to the school and see if they allow him to take the TerraNova for 7th grade and 8th grade. Once you have those data points you can draw some reasonable conclusions.

I get this from reading about the theory behind giving children 'above level tests' and working backwards.

Smiles,
Grinity

Thank you. I completely understand what you're saying about 'overthinking' some of the easier questions - DS does this quite a bit.

I was thinking that he might not be quite at the 'optimal' challenge level, if those scores are indicative. (I remembered that I received some scores on his tests for the GT program last year and wondered the same thing.) Ultimately, I've been hoping that the grade skip would be sufficient and I'd be a little more confident if his impression wasn't that the tests were easy and his scores weren't what they are.

Thanks for the feedback.

Thanks, Dottie, for your insight. If DS took the grade-level test, would it be a reasonable assumption that he's still not 'optimally' challenged, given the 98/93? I guess that's what I'm trying to figure out - where is the point that he'll really have to work at it, so to speak.

I'll try to see if I can get some more breakdown, but I'm not hopeful .

Thanks.

If you are worried that he isn't challenged enough....ask then to give him the test for the higher grades. It didn't take him long.
When does middle school start in your district? Is there a building change next year? Have IOWA acceleraltion scale Manual?

Smiles,
Grinity

Middle school starts at 7th here, so next year for DS. However, he's in a K12 charter this year because we weren't overly impressed with our experience last year.

Since he only meets with his teacher at school for 3 hours a week, I'll take the credit for that one - just kidding, LOL. Actually, what we're seeing this year is that the material is still relatively easy for him, but we've been emphasizing the *quality* of his work. Underachievement is a big problem for us and having had the bare minimum on his part be enough in the past is hard to overcome. I don't know that another grade-skip is anything we'd even consider because DS is not...ummm...globally motivated. Even this year, it's been a struggle to get him to a point where he'll do his best on the work that he doesn't want to do - he may know the material, but he tries to get away with poor, sloppy, minimal effort. If he's interested, it's slightly different, but not much.

Secondly, with the first grade-skip he missed some crucial instruction in writing (which he hates), so we're really focusing on that. I can't see moving ahead to a point where more writing will be expected when there's already what he considers "too much writing" where he's at now, KWIM?

I'd just like to find a balance that keeps him challenged enough to help with the motivation. I feel like I'm not adequately expressing what I mean, UGH.

Anyway, thanks for the insights!

Can you spice things up with Art of Problem Solving for Math? G3 for writing? Sometimes kids are unmotivated because the material isn't interesting...
What does the teacher think of jumping him up?
Anyway - good luck!

What's G3?