My DS6 recently took the WJ III. I don't understand how the Broad scores are calculated. I researched this forum for answers, but I can't see any of Dottie's posts where she answers this question! Can someone else please explain?
Here are his scores:

Calculations 12 137 >99
Math fluency 34 127 99
Applied problems 30 136 >99
BROAD Math 139 >99

Spelling 31 141 >99
Writing Fl. 10 129 97
Writing sample 12-A 128 97
BROAD Written 139 >99

Letter-Word ID 50 144 >99
Reading Fluency 35 133 99
Passage Comp. 33 145 >99
BROAD Reading 137 >99

Total Achievement 141 >99

I don't understand how his Broad Reading is the lowest Broad score when his two highest individual scores are in the reading group. I would think his broad reading score would be at least 140. What am I missing? I was really hoping to apply for DYS soon. We have a qualifying FSIQ on the WISC and I was hoping to have achievement scores as well. I've heard the WIAT is better for HG kids because the tests are longer than the WJ III. Should I test him with the WIAT and see how he does or go ahead and apply with a portfolio? His WISC scores were:

VCI 138
Similarities 17
Vocab. 18
Comp. 14

PRI 147
Block 16
Pict. Concepts. 19
Matrix. 18

WMI 132
Digit 14
L-N seq. 17

PSI. 131
Coding 15
Symbol 16

FSIQ 148.
I've left a message for the tester about extended norms and was going to ask about the broad reading score as well. The university he was tested at is closed for spring break, so I figured I could get an answer much faster here! Thanks for your input!

So, I don't know either, but I noticed you had a total achievement for your WJ, my tester said there wasn't one for the WJ. UGh. frustrating!

I will also say that my son's WJ scores came in lower than I expected given his IQ as well. I will read about the WIAT.

We ended up in a similar situation with my DS6. His WISC-IV GAI qualifies him for DYS, but none of his achievement scores were high enough to use. Perhaps his achievement scores weren't higher because he has not been taught concepts beyond first grade as they aren't accelerating him at school or maybe it is because of his 2E. Not sure. We just applied last month to DYS with his IQ scores and a portfolio.

I think you are right to be questioning the computation of the "BROAD" scores from the components. I don't know how the calculation is done, but as a mathematician. I look at the numbers and think that something definitely doesn't look right.

I think you should ask the tester to please check their calculations. I bet BROAD Reading is supposed to be 145 or more.

Hi Kelli,

I don't know how the broad scores are calculated, but I looked back at the WJ-III tests that my ds has had, and compared his broad scores to subtest scores, and just summing + averaging doesn't equal the broad score - so there's some type of weighting or something attached to the calculation.

You might try googling for an explanation.

I know it's frustrating to be so close but not *quite* there - but fwiw, my ds always had lower-than-predicted scores on his WJ-III achievement tests, but once he was just a little bit older and started taking other types of achievement tests his achievement scores lined up more in the range of his ability scores.

Best wishes,

polarbear

My understanding is that the WJ III is computer scored. Also, we were told that as a rule achievement scores are going to come in lower than IQ scores. Evaluator said it is harder to get a broad reading score that is higher since it is calculated based on raw scores and more people in the norming population do very well on reading as compared to math or writing. It looks as though everything is greater than 99th. We were also told that many achievement test do not separate scores out beyond the 99th percentile (so, no 99.9 etc.) not sure if that is the case for the WJ though?

BTW, I was also given grade equivalents for the WJ III. Is there a way to determine if his test was normed for 1st grade or Kindergarten by looking at the results? He was just shy of 6 yrs 4 mos. at testing and in Kindergarten. I can provide the grade equivalents if that would be helpful.

I really don't know how they are calculated, but I have to think there is something off in the scoring on the reading. My DS was given WJ Achievement just before he turned 7. His scores were as follows

147 Broad Math
145 Calc
140 Applied Problems
109 Fluency

133 Broad Reading
141 LW ID
131 Pass. Comp
117 Fluency

His scores compared to your DS makes me think maybe there is a typo somewhere but I don't know?

Maybe the broad scores are based on more than the 3 subtests? My DS was in 1st grade when he took the test but I think it is age normed for the scores.

Percy, the broad scores are only based on the three subtests in each category (reading, writing, math).

polarbear

Kelli, I pulled out one of my ds' full computer report from one of his WJ-III Achievement Tests... the scores you have posted above are standard scores, which are scores that have been referenced to a norm'd group of students... so they show your ds' performance relative to same age or same grade peers. I suspect that the standard score for the "broad" tests are computed from the subtest raw scores, rather than the subtest standard scores, and that's why they don't seem to make sense.

polarbear

I am almost 100% certain that there is an error somewhere with the reading scores. The numbers just don't make sense. OP, you need to focus on this, and firmly request the tester get this sorted out ASAP.

WJ comes with a scoring program. You plug in the raw scores and the software calculates the scores. I know the numbers look odd but they are not due to calculation errors - unless your tester decided to calculate scores manually, which would be a very strange thing to do.

ETA: OP, if I were in your place, I'd opt for a portfolio. I don't recall noticing a lot of differences between the two achievement tests, at least not enough to justify the extra expense.

Regardless, it is essentially impossible for the Reading numbers in the OP to be correct. Something has gone wrong somewhere.

What if their formula for calculating broad reading weighs reading fluency more than other skills?

ETA: I'm not sure if I'm making sense and I have to get back to work!

Do you know this to be the case, or are you playing devil's advocate?

Why do you think it's impossible to get the reading #s posted above, without seeing the raw scores and without having the computation formula? How do you think they are being calculated?

Sorry, not trying to be picky, just curious what your thought process is in saying they can't be correct. The reason I mentioned my ds' report is that his Broad #s also look odd if you are only looking at the part of the report that lists SS vs percentile. I'm fairly certain the Broad Total # isn't calculated from the subtest standard scores, but rather from a combination of the raw scores and then it's compared to the norm group to come up with a Broad Standard Score... which is why you need to look at the full report, and why the relative values of SS #s might seem odd when you first look at them.

polarbear

ps - if I'm wrong about how the scores are calculated, please let me know. I don't want to spread any misinformation!

OP, in your score report do you have a column labelled "W"?

What are those scores?

Thanks for all your input! My powers of Goigle rarely fail me, but it is proving nearly impossible to determine exactly how broad scores are calculated. As others have noted scoring on the WJ III is by computer only, so there are no tables available to view. It's just confusing because with the other broad scores "the whole is greater than the sum of the parts" in a sense, but not the reading cluster.

Polarbear- thanks for the explanation. I wish we could find the exact formula! What are the most useful numbers on the full report? His Broad Reading score of 137 had a grade equivalent of 4.6, Broad Math 139 GE 3.0, and Broad Written 139 and GE 3.3.
Can anyone tell by comparing scores if it was norms for Kindergarten or 1st grade?
Does it matter to DYS if scores are based on grade or age?
I would love to find out it was normed for 1st, which would hopefully result in qualifying scores! Wishful thinking on my part, I know, but a girl can dream can't she?

22B, I'm still waiting on the tester's supervisor to sign off on the report, but she let me see it and copy down all the numbers. There were no W scores, just Raw, standard, percentile, and grade equivalent. Should I ask for W? What would that tell me?
Thanks!

Some of it is propietary/confidential information, but one can glean certain parts of it. (I'm pretty sure it's age-normed mot grade-normed.)

Everyone who has a WJ-III (ach) report, check out the "W" column, if your report has one.

It appears that the W's for the "BROAD" and "BRIEF" and othe combinations are indeed simply the (unweighted) arithmetic mean, i.e. the "average" or the W's for the component tests.

Can others of you check to see if you can confirm this pattern.

We don't know how to get W's from raw scores (and age) but that's not really important.

What's a more important unknown for this discussion is how W is translated to SS (Standard Score(?)). It's probably a linear function (with rounding), but it could be a different linear function for each test (and hence for the combinations of tests like "BROAD" and "BRIEF"). One could try to deduce the coefficient from various examples of score combinations.

I have W scores (and percentiales and age equivalents, etc etc.) BUT, I don't have a standard Broad Math score. If I give you the W score can you give me that?

KelliB, I've tried to figure out how to calculate the "Broad Scores," too, because DS5 took the WJ-III Ach. when he was 4.5 y.o. to get into a summer program. From what I understand, he took all of the subtests to have the "Broad Reading" and "Broad Math" calculated. He did very well, but at the time, I had no reason to have "Broad Scores" calculated - so they never were. The person who gave the test has since retired and I don't think it would be easy to have this same person calculate the scores.

I'd love to know if there was a way to calculate the broad scores without having to go pay someone else to do it. Like you, I've searched, but have never had them calculated because I have no idea how to do it! I strongly suspect that at least the reading scores would be very high (this was before DS became very interested in math, so these were lower). I doesn't look like any "writing" subtests were given, but this makes sense, given his age at the time of testing.

Does anyone know if achievement scores performed at 4.5 y.o. would be valid for DYS anyway, or does the child need to be 5 y.o. when the test is done?

I also would love to know if anyone here knows how to calculate broad scores!

My DD also has what appear to be odd broad score calculations. I have wondered the same question as the OP for a while and was not able to find any answers. It seem odd to me (and I am certainly not a mathematician) that the Broad RPI score is lower then any of the RPI's in the subset. I figured it had to be something with not having a representative sample of scores.

22B - my W scores for the broad scores are indeed the average of the W scores for the subset.
FWIW

Letter Word ID RAW 40, W 467, RPI 161 SS 100/90
Reading Fluency RAW 21, W 482, RPI 142 SS 98/90
Passage Comp RAW 19, W 469, RPI 140 SS 100/90

Broad Reading W 473, RPI 134, SS 100/90

I just found the WJ III Assessment Service bulletin #11, which states "The W difference is the value from which standard scores, percentile ranks, and relative proficiency indexes are derived."
You can read it here:
www.riverpub.com/products/wjIIIComplete/pdf/WJ3_ASB_11.pdf

Since it's all done by computer, it shouldn't be a big deal to ask for W scores from my tester, right?

Also, from what I've read it sounds like the tester can choose between age or grade norms.

The reading scores don't look right to me--my ds7 got a 135 in reading and the scores were lower. In fact, if I'm reading it correctly, it seems that the writing subtest scores are lower than reading and the broad written composite is higher. Your DS's reading comprehension score seems highly exceptional for a six year old. It seems like the broad reading score should be at least in the mid 140s and meet the Davidson requirements.

My paperwork from the tester agrees with polarbear that the broad scores include the three (each) subtests. However, my report also shows additional items including an oral language score, and two seemingly separate scores 1) math calculations (slightly higher than the calculations in the subtest) and 2) written expression (slightly higher than the writing fluency subtest).

I know that oral language includes following directions, and story recall, and story recall delayed. I don't understand the written expression and math calculations, separated out from the 3 broad scores. I can only think that they are optional subtests administered by the doctor or DS hit some kind of ceiling and they have a separate calculation.

You're not alone, I found it difficult to interpret the results.