hi! we used a different tester to get updated achievement scores and I am ready to cry... HUGH drop all round. I wonder if the were mistakes in scoring... or if I have a lot of work to do with DS.
Stort recall was a complete fail..... he would not (or could not) recall stories immediately or delayed. He is 7.5 years olf and GE for story recall was Raw scores as follows:
Letter WOrd ID : 61
Readin fluency : 41
Story recal;: - (W 493)
Understanding directions : (W 504)
Calculation : RAW 16??
Math Fluency - RAW 31
SPelling - Raw 40
Writing fluency raw 10?????
Applied problems : raw 33

What happened????? I have a stomach ache.
Please help!!!

Sounds like he just had a bad day. I wouldn't freak out over one test. Has he suddenly starting doing terribly in school or anything? Does he seem depressed or angry? If not, try not to worry, everyone has a bad day once in a while.

He seems unhappy. He thinks school is boring and he pretends to be sick everyday. He hasn't had any exciting projects to turn him on... he does his homework in 30 seconds and hasn't had to study for a single spelling test. ITs been an awful year in school.

Did your son purposely bomb the test? One of my boys did, when he was afraid that if he did well he'd have to change schools. He went from a 99th pct to a 15th. (Takes talent to bomb so successfully.) Can you talk to your son about what was happening when he took the test?

Sorry to hear. I too would suspect he did it on purpose or didn't have a good day. ... I remember bombing a major test simply as an experiment to find out what it feels like and to see if the teacher would notice the pattern of how I changed my answers around (to my disappointed, she never caught my joke :()... I was 7 back then

He just keeps saying it was boring and he wasn't paying attention. That is is MO for almost EVERYTHING these days. I am starting to get very worried that:
A) THis was all a fluke to begin with and he is not even gifted
B) Made a HUGE mistake accelerating him and that it is not "easy" for him, but rather "too hard"
C) he will be soon be identified as ADHD
D) I am losing my mind

Do you do any after school enrichment or activities right now? It seems like maybe he needs something to take his mind off school for a little while - soccer or karate or SOMETHING. That doesn't fix the school situation, but sometimes having something going on that makes you happy can make the boring stuff easier to get through.

I highly doubt his other testing was a "fluke". It's pretty hard to accidentally score as gifted or a full grade level or two above your age peers.

ITA with everything Dottie wrote.

One thing that you might consider - it looks like all of his fluency tests are "relatively" low (compared to the comprehension/etc tests in the same categories - when you group reading subtests, writing subtests, math subtests). The "fluency" tests are the subtests that are timed - it's possible he simply didn't realize working fast was important, or maybe his handwriting is slower than his oral response ability etc.

I wouldn't just automatically assume he "threw" these tests or was having an anomalously bad testing day - those things might have happened but there is a little more in your posts that I would think through. He's not happy at school - that could be boredom, but are you 100% sure of it? Have you sat in on class at all to see what is going on? Does his teacher think he's bored, or does he/she have any concerns? FWIW, my ds13 had significant drops in WJ-III Achievement Scores between when he was tested at 5 and when he was tested again at 7. The lower scores (at 7) were *not* representative of who he is (he now is testing way high again)... but those lower scores were *accurate* in that he had an undiagnosed learning disability, and it was in the WJ-III Scores (combined with looking at his IQ subtest scores) that it first became understandable. The other thing that was going on, at 7, in 2nd grade was.... ds was miserable at school. Not knowing about the disability... to us as parents... it looked very much like ds was simply bored at school. I'm guessing that's not the case with your ds, but based on those lower fluency scores, I would consider thinking through his school day, his complaints, his work, etc just to be sure there isn't something more than boredom going on.

Best wishes,

polarbear

OK, totally ignore my post - I was thinking you'd written in percentile scores! Even though you have RAW written there clearly - I apparently wasn't paying attention!

Sorry I didn't see they were the RAW scores -

polarbear

I will share a few observations that may touch on this.

- The "gifted" label tripped us up. We lumped our child into a category and then read a few books about other gifted children, assuming that somehow told us about her. We fit her for a gifted team jersey and then pushed her back out there expecting everything to change somehow because we now had an IQ score. Had we spent more time understanding her unique strengths, weaknesses, and needs, she would be a lot happier and possibly in an entirely different place. Labels are more helpful as clues than as conclusions.

- Remind yourself that the gifted population is incredibly diverse despite what some books imply.

- In my experience children do not often tell parents what is really going on. Just last night DD9 told us for the first time that when she was four her pre-K co-teacher told the entire class they were stupid after all but one failed to put a certain number of cotton balls on their sheep craft. This same teacher also told DD she was not smart after she made two lady bugs instead of the required three. She carried that around for five years after without telling us. Ouch.

- Learning disabilities can be incredibly hard to tease out of gifted children, so that's always worth exploring especially if you can afford to test for it even "just in case."

- As Cathy M said on this forum once, "Any test score is just a snapshot of your child on a particular day. It's not a number stamped on her brain at birth."

aww.., Lukemac. I'm sorry for your stress and worries. What was the second achievement testing for? just the kind they do in school? Sorry I can't tell you about the testing, we've not been there yet.
If he's crying everyday tell the school. They took me out of class daily in second grade to teach a first grade reading group. I remember not loking second grade. Sometimes you gotta make some noise to be heard. Call the secretary. Make a phone conference appointment with the principal or teacher. Let them know that something about going to school is really bothering your kid.
Don't get ulcers. Afterschool. Stick with the three Rs. It doesn't take much to get and stay on track. Make studying a habit for 20 minutes to an hour or so a day most days. Read three times a week. Do a little math daily. Make a weekly writing goal. Make it a lifestyle habit. At least that's how I'm raising my kids regardless of the school. It's probably no surprise I'm saying teach your kid extra, I'd say that to most parents.

Thank you all!! Yes... Those were raw scores. I have the standard scores as well but can't multi task on iPhone to include them.
There is a lot going on aside from boredom... I know he gets teased a bit and we are working on that. He's very small and young compared to peers and it shows. I'm fairly certain he is add... Inattentiveness being the biggest issue. He also has a teacher that is checked out and doesn't really get him.
I don't really get him! His memory is ridiculous and I almost thought he had that weird memory thing that starts with an I.... And then he bombs the story recall. He could tell you what I was wearing on June 11, 2010! And what song was on the radio.... He seems to have lost his lust for learning in general this year.
His new thing is that he "hates" everything. I miss my curious inquisitive loving boy. He's emotional and anxious and back talking. He's totally changed this year.
The reason we retested was because we felt he was starting to lag... Not in the classroom... Well, we haven't seen a report card yet... But in his thirst to learn. He seems to have lost his luster. Does that make Sense???

Brief achievement 142
Broad reading 126
Broad math 135
Broad wl 126
Academic skills 143
Academic fluency 119

So a large decrease indeed!

A far fall from the >99.9 percentiles of yesteryear!

Lukemac, while these new scores aren't greater than 99.9th percentile, they are far from "fall off a cliff" type scores.. they are still very good! I think there's a very real possibility some of the effect you're seeing is simply that sometimes early testing scores *are* high relative to later scores... or you're seeing a child that has something else going on that's getting in the way of learning.

I'm was curious what his previous test scores were, so I peaked through the old posts... I noticed you had posted about a verbal/reading achievement test score that came in lower than expected earlier this fall (Gates McG? sorry.. forgot the name of the test already)... his scores on that test were 77-85th percentiles... which of course is lower than 99.9th on the WJ-III. Having two sets of lower than expected achievement scores, I'd be tempted to look into what's going on further and not just assume it's boredom with this year's class situation.

I would also wonder about this:


There are different types of memory, and having a photographic memory for events long ago isn't using the same brain processes that are required to process words read and then remember and/or put together what they meant. I have a dd who has a weakness in associative memory, and she has odd memory blips like what you've mentioned.

polarbear

Polar bear... I agree. Something is amiss. But what????

Some kids peak early and others peak later. Maybe he learned alot very quickly when he was 5 and tested and now is learning at a slower rate at age 7. I don't think I would use achievement tests in that way. I would just say- he's a bright kid, is he happy, is he learning something; and just leave it at that.

I'm not sure if I'm following the whole concept. So, a five year old tests and shows his achievement level is say at around 3rd grade level. After a couple of years of ?undifferentiated? school, he's in 2nd grade and has about a 4th grade achievement level? Without actual directed learning at his optimal level of learning, how would his knowledge and skills advance?

The question isn't what is wrong with the kid, but what is wrong with the placement and pacing and content at school? And why is school wasting 5-6 hours of his day every day under the functional lie that he is learning?

Dottie - thank you so much for taking the time to line it all up like that. I guess I need to wrap my head around having an MG kid versus a PG kid though his presentation is way more EG/PG then MG the reality is that it is what it is.
I want him happy. I want him learning and loving it again.
Thank you everyone else for your insight. I strongly suspect 2E stuff but very murky on what/why. Anyone with ideas I am open.
ZEN - I agree. I would have thought that years in school would have INCREASED scores as he is now exposed to so much more then when in preschool, but sadly... he either isn't exposed or it is not sticking. SOmewhat of a problem either way, no???

Seems he needs enrichment or a change in school setting before there are any viable conclusions. Achievement is not aptitude.

Lukemac, I would look into stealth dyslexia. I just finished reading the dyslexic advantage by the Eides. It has a great section on memory and why someone who is dyslexic is both the family historian and can remember those things better than anyone but has a hard time with procedural learning. The book gives a lot of descriptions of how bright dyslexics are and the entire time I truly just thought of PG kids from early infancy. Most of their descriptions could easily apply to PG kids too.

Dyslexics can read and very often teach themselves by memorizing words but have a hard time with phonics. Some read very well early on but on closer examination have certain problems with reading. It does not always mean trouble with overall reading. My son for example cannot sound out nonsense words and will skip words like to or the when reading out loud. My son improves the grammar in the Magic Tree House series because he reads what it should say rather than what it does say! He is a self taught fluent reader before 5 testing at 7yo at 5th grade level and he is dyslexic.

I would think that your GATES testing where he did poorly on reading and did not qualify for the gifted program might make sense given a dyslexic reading ability (skip words, etc). It is easy to make mistakes on a test if you skip words or do word substitutions.

The Mislabeled Child by the Eides has different chapters on different learning problems including ADD, dyslexia and Autism/Aspergers. I know you mentioned those before. You could read this and see if any of them fit, too.

Lukemac, I think if you hang around here you can get caught up thinking 98th percentile isn't all that "out there" - but really, a kid with a 98th percentile IQ score in most cases needs a heck of a lot more than is offered in the typical classroom, or even in the typical gifted classroom. I would let go of thinking of whether or not the IQ # represents "PG" or "MG" and instead do your best to know your ds well, and get him the challenge he craves and/or needs (while still also trying to understand what's behind any ability-vs-achievement questions you have).

I'm in a hurry at the moment, will be back later re thoughts on "what to do".

polarbear

If he had something like stealth dyselxia, wouldn't that impact spelling? Spelling is one of his stronger skills - I had thought about that diagnosis but ruled it out due to his spelling - so am I mistaken?

Some people have problems with spelling and some do not. Many get 100% on spelling tests and never show problems until college, btw, when they finally encounter words they do not know.

Here is from one article:

Dyslexia can involve more than just reading problems. Often, it’s associated with difficulties in these areas as well:

Handwriting
Oral language
Math
Motor planning & coordination
Organization
Sequencing
Orientation to time
Focus & attention
Right-left orientation
Spatial perception
Auditory & visual processing
Eye movement control
Memory

This may be a clue.... He has lots of those issues. Plus, he does not have cerebral dominance - he is neither righty or lefty and he is NOT ambi. Holy cow. Who can diagnosis such a thing?

I would recommend reading The Dyslexic Advantage and going to dyslexicadvantage.com

The website has a forum similar to this one and you could ask for a recommendation there.