DS5.8 has been homeschooled since Thanksgiving (Kindergarten) and for now we're taking pretty much an unschooling approach. He took the ITBS right after we pulled him out of public school just to see where he's at and overall he was 99th percentile, with lowest being 91st percentile in vocabulary, which I found funny because vocab is his biggest strength in real life but he just couldn't tell what some of the black and white pictures on the test were. I had trouble too so can't blame him! lol

Our state does not require testing for homeschoolers but I would like to have him take another test in the next few months just to see where he's at again so I can still feel good about unschooling. He still doesn't read ... can decode a lot of words but is far from fluently reading anything yet and we are not pushing it. He's doing much better at it now than he did 5 months ago and as long as we're seeing improvements, we're fine with it. Back then we were seriously concerned with dyslexia, now not so much. He just truly wasn't ready. I'm guessing he's right on track where he should be with reading, maybe even slightly ahead in K judging from our friends. In Math he's playing around mainly with 2nd grade concepts now (just started about 3 weeks ago). So I'm not sure which test to choose and what grade?

My guess would be if doing it now, to use 1st grade test rather than Kinder and if we were to do it in the fall, to use 2nd grade test? Any recommendations as to whether ITBS or TerraNova2 would be better? I didn't like the ITBS much but not sure if they all looks the same or if there's a difference? My main thing is that we don't hit the 99th percentile ceiling again too easily but don't want the test to be too hard either.

just to add, his Grade equivalents 5 months back when he took the the ITBS for Kinder were all 1 to 2 years ahead. So maybe we should even do 2nd grade test now? (and by now I mean in a month or two)

bumping this up ... still hoping someone knows enough about both of these test to give me some advice

If I'm recalling correctly, the CAT testing above 1st grade assumes some literacy on the part of the student-- I'd watch out for that, since you're trying to get a read on levels above 1st grade.

I mean, you could certainly read questions to him if you were proctoring it yourself-- and there are homeschooling supply places (Family Learning Organization in Spokane, for example) that will mail stuff to you and score when you return things priority mail-- but that wouldn't be exactly like standard testing conditions.

I'd probably do it that way, myself, just to get a feel for where he ACTUALLY is, since the literacy is likely to produce an artificially low ceiling otherwise on anything 2nd grade or up.

After all, you plan to reevaluate in a few months again, right? This would be a way of being VERY low-key about testing, too-- just do a section or two each afternoon for a few days, and don't worry about a big trip to the testing center or anything.

All of the tests have their own flavor in terms of test item design and wording/style. The CAT worked for us because it seems to relate best culturally (we live on the same coast).

Thank you, HK! That's exactly what I'm planning on doing ... reading to him. He is 2E so he would very likely need accommodations in public school as well. We never got that far in his IEP since we pulled him out in early Kindergarten. This is all information just for us, nothing we'd need for any official use.

I didn't really like the ITBS the first time we did it in fall (also did it at home through a mail in testing service). So maybe we'll like the CAT better.