Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment what do Aimsweb and DRA really tell you?

Hello everyone. I haven't been on for ages, as three small boys and life give me a hard time keeping my head above water, but I found this board really helpful two years ago when my oldest son was utterly melting down over school (got a lot of helped, skipped a grade, things are tolerable). Now I have a friend whose son reminds me a lot of mine, who is having all the usual problems with school, for two years now, and is getting weepy, begging not to go to school, etc. Losing all that love of learning. He was writing and reading out loud poems on the planets in pre-K, but he's particularly gifted in math - he was adding easily at 3, multiplying and dividing before kindergarten -but he hasn't been challenged at all since then. The school is appallingly anti-gifted and expect this 7yo boy just to sit there; the family is applying for a magnet school in another town but the chances of getting in are low. The school is not about to test him with anything the Davidson would accept, and testing privately isn't really an option.

My friend just got Aimsweb and DRA scores for her son that were apparently well above average, but we can't find a scale online that would tell us what they MEAN. We know Aimsweb, at least, is meant to catch kids falling through the cracks. Do they say anything about what level the kid is actually at? He got something like a 29 on the reading DRA and a 50 on the Aimsweb math. But other than that it's well above average, we don't know what it means. If anything, given that whole not-geared-toward-assessing excellence problem so many of these tests have.

I'd appreciate any help you can give helping me help my friend interpret this (and figure out a way to help her kid!) Even though I've been through it in my school, I'm having a real hard time trying to figure out how to help her, and seeing her son inch closer to the breakdown my son had is awful.

Does having private testing help break a really recalcitrant school into action?

thanks very much for reading this!

Jenny

Welcome back Jenny!
Great to hear that thing are 'so-so' - that's wonderful!
((shiver, but yeah, it is))

Is your friend in CT? (If so, get all the kids to some "Minds in Motion" programs through CAG.) Are Private schools an option?

I looked up DRA of 29, and it puts him squarely in the middle of 3rd grade, so assuming he's in 2nd grade, there are probably several other kids in his grade at the same level. So I conclude from that that either:
a) he needs glasses
or
b) that they stopped the test at level 29, figuring 'well, we aren't going to do anything for him if he's above grade level, so there is no point in putting him through further testing.'

the way to check is to find out what he's currently reading, just pick 5 books at random that he likes, and go to Scholastic's website and click on 'book wizard' tab -
http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=4476

They'll tell you grade level. IF the grade level is consistiently well over 3rd grade, then yes, they mismanaged the test in some way. In fact, if you click on the book title, you can see the DRA over on the left column. If there is a problem, type up a list of 20 books, with their DRA, and call the school for a meeting to ask pointed questions.

As for Aimsweb Math, the norms I think vary from test to test, and a phone call to Pearson might be in order. I found this:
http://www.aimsweb.com/uploads/pdfs/scoring_mcbm.pdf
and
http://www.aimsweb.com/measures-2/mathematics-cbm/

which are worth looking at to show what the tests tested.

I would probably have the child do an assesment on Aleks.com or get Sinapore Math placement tests, free here:
http://www.singaporemath.com/Placement_Test_s/86.htm

(ok, worksheet are more impressive than computer printouts - schools like to see it in the child's handwriting)

As for cheep IQ tests, I think www.talentigniter.com/ is probably better than nothing, not so much to show the school, but to impress the parents with what they are dealing with.

You might try calling local universities and seeing if there are any studies that the child can volunteer for that do free IQ test are part of the experiment.

That's all I can think of for now -
Grinity

thank you so much! I wondered about that DRA score, too. We followed the book wizard thing and he came up between halfway through 5th grade and halfway through 7th. I feel so like, ha! HAH! I KNEW that kid was way above level for reading, too. It just didn't make sense.

And you've given me an idea of a plan, for her to do this math testing and send him to school with different books and maybe the singapore workbook, just to have something to do, with a cover letter about how her son is getting physically ill he's so upset about school. B/c they really literally have been having him sit. Some form of achievement testing to convince them he really does need not to sit there in the classroom, whether it's aleks or maybe someone cheap somewhere, would probably help my friend feel less like she's making it up...you know how schools can make a person full of self-doubt. It's hard when you're thinking all the time, "well, of COURSE I don't think he's some genius, it's just that, really, I could swear I see something in him the school just doesn't."

It's so hard.

And yes...as for our situation...yeah, isn't it kind of awful that ok is great? He's got the rumored best teacher in the school this year, and he reads a lot, and the teacher lets him do Singapore math if he gets a 95% on pretest, so that helps, too. And the skip let him get earlier into band, robotics, those kind of things, which also help. And he's been in the grade now for almost two years, so he's kind of settling in, learning the kids, getting along. Some things make us nervous, others are good...we're glad!

I like your plan, all the way up to the cover letter. I think that that sort of news needs to be given in person, otherwise it sends the extra message of 'I hate you, and have so little faith in you that I thought that if I told you my son is becoming physically ill that you'd just dismiss me and laugh it off. You are an unfeeling &!&*.'

I would do all the steps, get the materials prepared, and call the school for meeting talking about the physical symptoms. School very often do care alot about 'social/emotional' symptoms, and need to be notified right away.

Love and More Love,
Grinity

Kcab, she brought her son's sheets by today and his DRA score was actually 28. So that must be exactly what they did - stop at the target. How utterly maddening. She also brought last year's AIMSweb scoring and this years. Last year, the school printed out the AIMSweb assessment, which was across the board, no matter the subject, this child is well above average and needs individualized instruction. THIS year, they didn't give her that, they just gave her a summary number and a circled 'your child does/does not require tier II math intervention.' So it feels like they're trying to avoid showing her the things that support her contention that he needs extra or different work.

Grinity, first question - I've never called a company in my life. What department or position of person would I be asking for? Second, you wrote that line I'd like to quote but forgot to before I started writing, about it sending the message of having no faith in them. I agree, but the thing is after 2.5 years of struggle, she's really downhearted and truly feels the school will give nothing. She's had the meetings repeatedly with the principal, and with each teacher. Each time the teacher agrees to give enrichment homework and then does not follow through, and each time the principal tells her that they do not have a gifted program and will NEVER have a gifted program. Her school is K-3 and their district doesn't do gifted before 4th, end of story. She feels that further attempts at meetings are going to get her son disliked. I haven't met the people at all so I can't assess her assessment.

She also says that teachers either blow off her concerns or address classroom enrichment by literally putting her son up in a desk in the front of the room to do thousand piece puzzles while other kids work and watch him, and that they treat him like a performing math-seal, drawing attention to him in a way that's not at all helpful with the other kids, and doesn't teach him anything, either.

Her plan currently is to wait til the end of the school year, see what her lottery number is for the magnet school, and if they're not going to get in then go in and meet again with the assessments you've suggested in hand to say, ok, he's not gifted, I don't care about the label or you having some official program, but this is the level he is at and he needs work at this level or he is not meeting your school's mission, which is to educate everyone to their potential. I'm hoping that if she goes in there with a plan and materials to give them it might actually happen because teachers don't then have to come up with something on their own.

I definitely over-relate to her kid and their situation because of the trainwreck we went through. Her son seems more resilient than mine was, but it still worries me a lot to hear of the every night please please please can i go to work with you, can I be homeschooled, can I go for just half an hour and then come home? conversations. She says he only really fights her on going to school a couple days a week (!) but is a really good kid and goes b/c she says he really has to, friends are important, etc.

Poor kid. It just makes me so up in arms-y. His mom is pretty conflict-averse and very worried about making the school angry, and she feels like she's tried and tried and tried and tried. She hasn't wanted to teach him at home b/c then he'd have double work and it seems unfair, but I think she's coming around to it so her son can LEARN something again. So that might help him feel more interested. And I thought sending the email just saying 'hey, my son's been getting more and more upset about school and begs every day not to come, and we thought sending in these materials that interest him to work on in his spare time might help him - thanks for any time you can let him have to work on this' would be better than not letting the school know at all that he is having more and more problems, and better than just sending it in without explanation.

I have told her that our school didn't care a whit til my kid burst out sobbing in spelling class and they couldn't stop him for 90 minutes. THEN suddenly we got phone calls and them wanting meetings. So I'll try telling her you agree that the social-emotional thing might actually get them listening, and maybe something could be worked out so this poor kid doesn't have to spend another utterly useless four months. That's such a long time in the life of a kid.

I don't think that the numbers make much difference to a recalcitrant school, but sometimes the tester themselves can make a big difference.
If gifted starts in 4th grade, your friend's son happen to be in 3rd?
What about homeschooling while he waits for 4th grade?
Is the gifted program full time or a 90 minute/week pull out?

'above average' and even 'well above average' don't nescessarily equal 'needs individualized curricula' - except in the very idealist sence that maybe every child needs individualized curricula. The only way to know if a score means he needs more is to compare how many other kids in his grade (and the grade above and the one above that)have done. It may be that he is in the top 10% and a little bit of cluster grouping would solve his social-emotional problems. That's the benifit of testing by someone outside the system.

BTW - if there is a gifted program in 4th grade, that means that there is some kind of system in place to decide who get into it, and that means that there are testers within the school system who do these tests (unless they do group tests, also a possiblity) without direct cost to the parent.

Play the 'misery' card. Emails are the easiest to over look. Phone calls might be good unless the staff blocks for the principle. Let the tears flow! Better a crying parent than a crying child.

Love and More Love,
Grinity

I just talk to whoever answers the phone and make up a story that sounds somewhat reasonable. In this case it would be:
My son is asking for more Math at home, and I wasn't sure what to tell the tutor to do with him, or what level books to buy him, so I got out his paperwork, and saw that he scored a X on his XXXX test as a X grader. Would you help me figure out who to ask what that score means?

Something like that...
grin

I couldn't agree more.
Grinity

Could she throw herself on the mercy of the U Conn Center for Gifted Education and Dr. Renzulli. Maybe find a grad student to do some testing?

http://www.gifted.uconn.edu/