Hi,
I am new to this forum. Have been a silent reader for the past couple of weeks. My eight almost nine year old was tested this year in 3rd grade. He scored a 9E(V-) in CoGAT and 99% in ITBS for reading and Math. The school will not do anymore testing. They have identified him as very strong in Math and Reading based on the CoGAT and ITBS scores. From 4th Grade he will be pulled out of class for a couple of hours each week for AG work.
Right now he has been getting complaints from his teacher that he is not finishing his work on time and he is not paying attention. She says he does not follow thru with the tasks assigned to him. The GT teacher who tested him remarked that he was probably just bored. He is a well behaved kid but since last year I have noticed he doesnt like school as much as he used to.
I have never thought of him to be super smart but he does pick things up very quickly. He was an early reader and he loves legos and puzzles since he was 3. He is my first born so I do not have much experience in recognizing if he was advanced for his age. I do not really remember his milestones.
Do you think getting him tested (IQ and achievement ) will help with better understanding his needs ?
It costs quite a bit so I was wondering if the testing is really necessary or if I should just challenge him at home with work that is a grade above his current level. I have no one to talk to about this , my friends think I am crazy to be worried that my son scored so high on his tests. He is almost 9 and I do not want to kill any potential he may have.
Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

As I understand these things (I'm no expert), the CoGAT is an IQ test and the ITBS is an achievement test, so I'm not sure what would be there to gained by further testing.

CogAt is not an IQ test, it is a test of reasoning abilities.

Before you pay for further testing, perhaps you can speak with his teacher about having him work at his level. If this behavior continues once he's doing challenging work, then it may be time to have him tested.

I will say that 3rd grade is where things began unraveling for both dd and d.s.. There seems to be some erroneous thought in the teaching community that all children even out in third and fourth grades.

I would start with your insurance, assuming you have insurance, if you decide to do private testing. Find out if your insurance covers behavioral issues. If so, track down a neuropsychologist who takes your plan and schedule an appointment. That's the route we are going. It will take a while (May for us) to get in, but all we'll have to pay is our standard co-pay.

(Of course, there has to be a reason you are doing to see them. For us it is behavioral problems in school.)

It's not erroneous. As long as gifted children aren't receiving anything resembling appropriate instruction, the rest of the class will have caught up around then.

A sheepdog will catch up to a cheetah, as long as the cheetah is being forced to drag another sheepdog.

Thank you for replying. They are much appreciated.

Dude,
To be honest I am not sure what to make of his scores. Is he really gifted or just a smart boy? I think just CoGAT and ITBS dont tell me that. I am hoping further testing might help with that question.
Even if the school will not use those results I might be able to afterschool him better. Applying to programs like the Young Scholars seem require such tests done too. So it might be worthwhile to get it done.

Agent99,
The teacher has promised to do better but with 26 kids in her classroom with no TA she is streched pretty thin. His AG teacher has called for a conference next month so hopefully something comes out of it.

"I will say that 3rd grade is where things began unraveling for both dd and d.s.. "
May I ask what happened ?

Epoh,
Hmm its food for thought. Did you have to get a written note from the teacher before contacting the insurance ?

I'm usually in the minority on this board about whether to test, but I recommend testing based on your original post. Those of us with MG kids in particular may not be quite so sure about whether they're really gifted or not, especially if they're our oldest, and especially if they're a fairly compliant kid in school. For me, testing our DS before kindergarten made a huge difference in my confidence to advocate for him when he entered elementary school. Based on your original post, it sounds like you would be much more comfortable advocating and pushing for your DS's needs if you had testing to inform you first, and that alone would make it worth it, in my mind.

rachsr - We sought out a Dr to help us figure out what was going on with our son. For us, that was a psychiatrist, and he referred us to the counselor/therapist. You can probably start with your pediatrician. You might also be able to call your insurance (the number on the card) and ask if they cover behavioral health.

I'd also try to figure out what more the school would do for him if you had IQ test results. It may or may not be worth spending the money in terms of getting actual accommodations from the school. For us, I suspect that dd13 would have gotten all of the accommodations she's had including a grade skip even if we didn't have IQ test results, but I've been a lot more comfortable with the bigger type of interventions such as skipping a grade knowing that her IQ is high as well.

Is there any possibility of subject acceleration at his school where he goes to a higher grade level for some subjects?

Re unraveling kids, my dd13 fell apart on us in 1st grade. For her, b/c she was younger (i.e. -- not a 3rd grader), she cried in class, told us she wished she had never been born, and generally fell apart emotionally. Actually 3rd grade wasn't a great year either and I do recall her holding it together better in class (no crying), but she got a lot of stomach aches that were so bad that she kept going to the nurse's office and there were a few times when I picked her up from school and she started just shaking in the car.

Thank you everyone for taking the time to reply . We contacted a local university psychology department based on a recommendation. They do Gifted asessments for a reasonable cost so we will be taking that route.Thanks again!

Yes Coll You have understood me well. I am an engineer so having hard numbers to back me up will make me very comfortable if I will need to push for changes at school :-)

I am very glad everything worked out for your DD. MY DS hasnt really had severe reactions like your DD its more like not doing his work at school, not paying attention, not wanting to go to school etc. If I didnt have the test scores I would have attributed it to laziness :-( Maybe it has to do with where I came from.

Rachsr: May I also suggest that you volunteer in your child's classroom, if you have the opportunity? It's quite an illuminating experience. There are a number of reasons why your son may not be doing his work in class. It's helpful to see it from a classroom perspective.

That is a very good suggestion. When dd13 was in third grade, they had a number of teacher changes near the end of the year and dd stopped doing her math work and was missing things I knew she knew. I went in and observed from the back of the classroom one day. Dd was reading a book on her lap throughout the entire math period and, when called on, didn't seem to know the answers b/c she had no idea what the teacher had just been talking about.

I try to volunteer but our school does not encourage it much beyond 1st grade. I am infact one of the "Room parents" for DS's classroom.I wish I could go in more often to see what he does. The only time the teacher needs us is for fundraising or arranging specials(about 4 times a year) like during the Holidays time when the kids made ornanments.
This is what I observed then.They had a small activity during this event - the kids had to sort the several trinkets they got and graph the results. DS took his own sweet time to examine his trinkets and by the time he slowly took out his pencil to start writing down what he was supposed to almost all the other kids were done with their work and it was time to pack up.
I should add that DS knows how to draw Bar graphs. Last week he got back home 2 sheets of unfinished class work. One was a reading sheet and the other was a simple math sheet with word problems for multiplication and divison. He had done 2 of the 10 problems. When I asked why he didnt finish it at school, he answers " Its so easy mom here let me tell you the answers" and proceeded to rattle off the answers. Asked him why he couldnt finish it in school and he said he ran out of time. So its more like he is lacking the motivation to do the work rather than not knowing how to do it. Reading too its the same thing - he got his Lexile level 2 weeks ago and it was 890-1015L which is supposedly above 3rd grade level but he didnt finish his classwork that is at 3rd grade level.
I keep reminding him everyday that his teacher cannot give him challenging work if he cannot finish her usual work.He is a people pleaser so he does respond positively to his teacher when she reminds him to finish his work.
We have an appointment next week for his testing but the more I think about it I have come to realize that just testing him will not help. I need to work harder to get him excited about learning again.I still need to figure out how to do that. Researching forums like these have been very helpful. I really do appreciate all your advice :-).