I'm looking for opinions and perhaps guidance. The essence of my question...and then I'll give all the background....is whether to accelerate a child with EG IQ that has lower achievement scores (about 1.5 grades above) but not diagnosed LD...just a potential processing glitch? I'm stuck on next steps due to my child's complicated profile. He is in first grade at a high achieving public school

Background:
IQ: He completed ed psych testing last summer with a reputable tester. WISC-IV shows a GAI of 170 with majority of strength in VCI (166) but a 145ish in PRI. The processing speed was significantly lower...my recall is 97. Symbol search was lowest which I understood was a sign that the processing speed may be a visual perception or processing glitch versus just about fine motor skills (which are certainly depressed.)

ACH: WJ-III showed a discrepancy. Results were rather consistent amongst subtexts but depressed in comparison to IQ. Most scores were in the low 120s....1-2 grades ahead range I believe.

Phonological testing: revealed strength not deficit. Test been down three times.

Beery motor: demonstrated no major call outs but a little dip consistent with processing dip.

Executive skill and other behavior assessments: in normal range (though I see a few executive skill red flags as he gets older...nothing extreme!)

Consensus: something going on but what? Unknown.

Intervention: Our plan was to remediate outside of school. Enrich inside school. And wait to see what develops before we go down the path of accelerate or even accommodate/ remediate in school.
- 45 minutes a week with OG tutor
- 1 hour a week with OT on handwriting.
- Vision was checked and fine (we did not go down the developmental vision road due to skepticism of vision therapy on my DH's behalf,..we went down ophthalmologist road.)


We are a year later. It is very hard for me to ascertain improvement.

Teacher Feedback:
- tutor says she has never seen someone learn so fast. That my child never once needed a phonics lesson repeated. Tutor believes there is some processing glitch based on how my child seems very dependent on rules to decode. She provided a thorough comprehension test two grades above and he read at 145 wpm; he missed 4 words, 2 that did not really change the meaning of the story. He had 100% on comprehension questions but retellimg was dismal with lack of detail and all out of sequence.

- OT says she has never seen a child progress so fast. Started with fine motor in handwriting of a child two years younger than chronological age. Now on par if not ahead. Works best when using highlighted paper and well line. Speed is the issue now and minimal reversals (the number 6 still an issue.)

- teacher and gifted coordinator see his brilliance. Believes there is absolute no learning disability or processing glitch. Believe he doesn't always listen jumping into an activity before the lesson is complete and he tries to make the solutions much more complicated than they actually are (because he doesn't listen to the process given to solve.). If course doesn't listen or can't listen is my question...meaning is he not comprehending the process or is he truly tuning out? They are adamant he tunes out based on how eager he is to start the assignment. I have seen him do this!

The child: He does enjoy some math and reading work outside of school but very little...he will do maybe 30 minutes on .khan academy (school gave him an account for enrichment) and he reads an awful lot of non-fiction. He isn't terribly academic but he is interested in science and ancient history/world cultures. He complains of boredom in school...but doesn't want more math or reading per sell.wants science and social studies! Told me he might just scream out one day during class. , "teach me science. I m begging you!" He is a rather creative (not artsy) thinker.

I post all of this as his underachievement really scared me as did the testers feedback that she felt pretty certain some LD was present and it was making him embarrassed and anxious. However I have trouble clearly naming this LD. Meanwhile I'm on hold trying to ascertain do I advocate for some acceleration? I think I'd be laughed at if I try and ask for a single accommodation. I don't want my child to have a life of coasting as I can tell he isn't the overachiever/academically competitive type...but he is a good worker and tries to do whatever anyone asks him too.

So, here is where I need advice. Anyone accelerate a EG child with 2e issues that has depressed achievement scores (but still 1-2 grades above level). How did that work for ya?

What does he do when presented with more challenging material?

Faster pacing?

What would an acceleration get you that you don't have now?

Have you taken a look at the IAS?

While the not-listening-to-directions thing might be a problem in context, it isn't necessarily clear to me that (in a 5-7yo child) this is anything abnormal. It's a metacognitive skill set that is likely to be highly undeveloped in the age range, basically. Immaturity, if you will.

That's why I think you should probably be looking at tools to evaluate whether or not the child you have in front of you is a good candidate for acceleration or not.

I'd also point out that while you have teacher/tester input on your side, which is great, you may have a serious uphill battle for acceleration unless the achievement is grade-appropriate and then some. It sounds as though the achievement would support an acceleration, but that it might not produce the results you'd hope for-- in our experience, science and social studies are the areas where acceleration produces the least, and most ephemeral, improvements in fit. It also comes with costs-- increased demand on speed and executive skills. Is part-time or subject acceleration an option? Might look at that.

No helpful advice on the processing speed. Hopefully someone with more useful input will offer you some insights.

Challenging work: When he has more challenging material he ignores it if given an option. If told to do it...he does it and usually well. In the case he can't figure it out he frustrates easily. Last year this looked like crumpled paper, hidden work, meltdowns...now he typically will approach someone and ask for help. A combination of maturity and learning through all the OT work there is a difference between hard and impossible.

Faster pacing: he complains that school introduces something on Monday and then just repeats it every day until free Friday where kids who didn't get it catch up and those who did get a free day. He says he could start his free days on Tuesday but no one will let him . However with processing being average I'm not sure where his threshold is for this. He definitely hated math facts. He was completing 15-20 in time given when they began last quarter. Six weeks later he now completes 30-39 in same time.

What do I want: I want him to be challenged. I recognize his temperament is such that he doesn't challenge himself. I worry in current grade--differentiation comes with too much independence...plug him in and let him learn. No scaffolding. No instruction. The alternative is also too much choice...they offer him challenge work during free time but he chooses to make elaborate puppets out of paper instead. I don't like that he has to give that up to receive differentiation. I might be misguided but acceleration guarantees him a little challenge in the work (for now at least...) while still allowing him his free time to create if he works at a good pace. He also gets instruction on these topics he is just suppose to be learning independently right now.

I realize differentiation should include instruction and substitution...but it appears there is much uphill in making that a reality in the classroom. Thus I wonder which is better battle...Acceleration or compacting?

I did do the IAS on my own. I used his scores from last year renormed two grades above plus his current grade ITBS of 99%. His IAS score was 50....which is smack in the middle of the good range. Of course this is without anyone's input and there are subjective questions in the assessment.

I wouldn't accelerate without achievement scores in a better range. I'm assuming they may be...not to his IQ level but I suspect he is now 2-3 grades ahead versus 1-2. He will test again in June, privately. SSA has been my immediate interest as his math achievement was his strongest and had him 3 grades above.

I'm at a point where I've been looking at him through the lenses of a LD for a year and now I'm having trouble seeing the LD and wondering what new lenses I need? If that makes any sense.

That's the problem, though-- a single acceleration may well challenge in OTHER ways, but probably not academically. The issue is then a matter of exacerbation of the things that would give OTHERS pause in further acceleration, if that makes sense. So if "work is too easy" is at the root of the problem NOW, a single skip may not really fix it, and will (ironically) make it LOOK as though he's been placed well outside of his ability, rather than it simply being a matter of having made some things worse without correspondingly making the others better ENOUGH at the same time. If that makes sense.

So if you choose to pursue acceleration, you have to be pretty confident that your child will look like a stunning success story-- or you'll be worse off than before. ANY problems in the accelerated placement will probably be chalked up to "immaturity" or "inappropriately elevated expectations."

Also know that in K-5, it doesn't take that much to get a kid a few grade levels ahead. At least some of that can be attributed to work with a private tutor, yes? It does sound as though there has been a lot of additional work done with him over the past year. So purely on achievement, I'd discount that as a reason to accelerate (or not) in my own mind. The rate at which he seems to learn truly novel concepts would be a much stronger argument for me. Well, along with your test results, of course.

Also-- no worries on the intrinsic motivation front. I have one of those kids, too-- and you're right, independent study is a disaster with one of them. They simply don't "turn on" like that in a vacuum. Well, not for the stuff that others place in front of them, anyway.

What kinds of inputs do you get from others who know your child in semi-academic settings such as enrichment? Does he rise to the occasion when placed with older children in an area of interest? Or not?

Thank you both for the response. I'm on an iPhone so forgive typos.

The heart of the issue is exactly what was asked .."What are we remediating for?" Is there or is t there a problem? His remediation has been for:

Written Expression and Reading. There were some specific issues observed and those are no longer present. Ill detail at the bottom in case anyone has experience/expertise that helps me.

But to address the suggestion to nail down the LD...that has been my quest this year. We have had everything evaluated that I know to do....speech therapist did all her tests (and laughed at us for even testing his phonic and language skills), OT and PT did theirs (and say he is bordeline for dyspraxia and dysgraphia), reading specialist did hers and neuro psych looked at results and told me I have enough here to diagnose minor case of dysgraphia and possibly dyspraxia...And she'd do it on discrepency model but she'd rather my ed pysch diagnose as neuropsych has never seen Iq scores as high as my sons and she wouldn't know where to tease out LD and compensation. Pediatrician is happy to diagnose just based on what I tell her I haven't had her write it up as I dont want the labels if they won't be of help...school says no impact on education not even a 504 would be valid. Ed psych doesn't want to diagnose anything yet even though she suggests some LD is present based on his demeanor during achievement...she says he is too young and PG kids are so asynchronous and many a times have slower to develop processing speeds. I hear by middle school things should be real clear if a problem exists or perhaps even third grade. She is baffled how all achievements were around same level and no further tests show a breakdown or glitch in his processing.

So I could and one might argue should wait longer but a skip would be easier socially and emotionally now...and I still have an issue with his lack of exposure to hard work and how that is shaping his work habits.

He loves reading now and enjoys math but prefers to discuss and work on less process oriented tasks and more conceptual ones. This my be a product of how ritualistic and process heavy early grade education is.

We provide enrichment best we can while managing everything parents manage plus two demanding careers. We will continue with tutor and OT until every person agrees it is moot. My son enjoys it.

Detail as to his struggles and progress in case of any insight as to his underachievement:

Reading- last year when faced with an unfamiliar word he guessed based on context and clues. He was good at it but not fluent. He now decodes with fluency of 145 wpm so clearly automatic now. He originally tested with only small phonic gaps (dipthongs, bossy Rs, some short vowel combos). Once he was taught those phonic rules his reading soared. He read Harry Potter this year with barely an error. He is even decoding nes better (though still his weakness). So I can't see a current reading issue. Nor can his teachers. We can just say we all expected a child with VCI of 166 would be doing this at 5 not 7. Was time the answer and something clicked? Was there a gap that the expressed phonic rules closed? Did he just have a more unusual reading progression and decoding slowed him down this he guessed for efficiency? I may never know.

Handwriting- he is a preemie and fine motor skills are weaker. He had issues cutting. He never drew until his fours. He has poor grip, and is a slow writer. His circles still show a shakiness and he breaks lead often as he presses hard to compensate. He did have some spacing challenges a year ago. After using the finger rule enough he doesn't crowd anymore. He has strong grammar and spelling is much stronger now that he has the phonic rules. He was very resistant to writing in part due to the pain it caused his hands but also he hated not knowing how to spell the words. He is much more confident and his writing exercises at school usually are 2 full pages long and neat. His spontaneous writing in unlined boxes where he is working fast are messy. So I know he is compensating and working hard at writing but he is now able to forge ahead and show what he thinks and knows.

Thanks!

I met with teacher and gifted coordinator in February. They are aware of his scores. They see his IQ but not any disability or challenges. They have theories to explain underachievement most are maturity based...but age appropriate maturity

I asked about school's policy and history with acceleration. Gifted teacher took me off line appropriately as I opened it up as a future discussion. She emailed me several times since that she was researching and it appeared the policy is evolving at district level. I got an email last week that she wants to meet early May with vice principal to discuss and that the VP wants to share with me her thoughts on acceleration. I interpret this move as policy allows, school has negative opinion on it.

I am in no hurry as I think I want to learn, open the door and perhaps
Have them agree to end of year test him to see where he really is at by their own standards.

Here is an idea for you as you go into that meeting-- if they are seeing his weaknesses not as 2e issues at all, but as age-appropriate ones which are (for him) relative weaknesses, then a radical acceleration might seem like a huge jump to them.


Are there any split level classrooms in which your son's placement (sans skip) would place him into the LOWER grade next year?

That is, a 2/3 classroom?

That way, one plan COULD be for him to complete a full school year next year at an appropriate level for him-- and a decision wouldn't have to be made all at once, but the year might serve as a way to acclimate him to the older peer group, acclimate the administration to his readiness, and allow you and everyone else to help him mitigate any stumbling blocks before he gets into 4th grade.

That kind of thoughtful, slow, we-can-turn-back-if-we-see-red-flags, plan might be an easier sell with teachers and administration.

It also lets your DS test-drive an acceleration in a way that doesn't mean an additional placement shift for him if things don't fit perfectly next year. His maturity will still be fine for the cohort in the classroom (since he's in the age range in that class-- just at the lower side) and the academics on the higher side should provide everyone with a clear picture of how capable he is with the increased academic expectations.

Thank you. I'll double check but as of now we don't have any mixed classes. I wondered if SSA would be another way to test the waters without overly committing as well.

In a bit of a hurry here, so not much time for detail, but here are my 2 cents, fwiw.

If you can, I'd reconsider seeing a developmental optometrist. The issues they pick up aren't necessarily picked up in a conventional eye exam. I totally understand how odd the concept can seem and how it may be something that sounds bogus to people - because when our dd had a relatively low score had a relatively low score on symbol search and her neuropsych suggested a developmental optometrist eval I was *very* skeptical - and then completely surprised by the results. I'm now a believer And I'm very glad we went through the eval back then rather than waiting and having my dd move forward in school with an undiagnosed vision challenge.

One thing that makes me wonder about vision with your ds (aside from the symbol search score) is that he was a preemie. Another thing - do you have the PRI subtest scores (I think it was PRI that was lower than VCI?). I think there was a subtest in PRI that my dd did relatively poorly on due to vision issues.

Re the reading - I wouldn't put much thought into a PG child not reading way ahead of grade level at 5 but being there at 7 - not all HG/+ kids learn to read early. It's also possible that the reading evils he had done at 5 aren't accurate. At 5 my ds did not want anyone to *know* he could read, and he had me (and his teachers) completely fooled.

The other thing that can happen with reading and HG/+ kids is that it may be more difficult to read at lower levels of ability because they have to read/decode each word. Once they are reading at slightly higher levels and have a lot more words/paragraph etc they can read quickly because they can pick things up from context rather than having to read each and every word correctly.

Sorry I didn't have more time to explain - let me know if you have questions!

Best wishes,

polarbear

I wouldn't worry about the lack of achievement so much at this age. I suspect that some of that may be a mismatch in his interests vs what school offers him. And age-appropriate maturity level mixed with high IQ can sometimes have us seeing "problems" that are not really there. I wonder what you or the school mean by underachievement, is that vs his ultimate tested potential? Maybe I missed that somewhere.

I am on year 4 of a similar struggle. I will hedge by saying, while similar, my DS is EG, not PG so there may be some differences. What we (parents, teachers, g/t teacher, ed psych, tutor, etc.) found is that he will likely never get the 2e diagnosis b/c of his speed of learning. If you directly tell him something once he can apply it. That said, 90% of the time, he won't integrate the "basics" that he learned in class due to his perceived simplicity of it. We tried accelerating for a short period of time and actually found things getting worse b/c while he was more stimulated intellectually, his processing "glitch" was becoming more pronounced.

Since then, we have had great success with LB intervention (he needed some major gaps filled in) as it can easily identify the gaps in basics and they have the standardized retests annually so you can see if things fall between the cracks as he progresses throughout school. Following this, we have recently been "decelerating" him in school (not even sure if that is a real term ) to solidify the basis of reading, writing and math constructs, rules etc. as most who have the expertise tell me that he is ripe for significant struggles in 6-8 grade when the application and comprehension gets significantly harder. He has actually been able to use this time and lack of speed to his advantage. While he is bored stiff, after the intensive remediation, he intellectually understands what he needs to do, and knows it take him a little longer. He also strangely feels more like his peers and less "different". The trade off is, when he's home he gets to read his own things, at whatever level he wants and I have to do more "after schooling" in areas of his interest (history and engineering).

This has been and continues to be a huge struggle with no less that 5 people involved on any given day. I absolutely feel for you and wish I was further down the line to give you some better long term advice. For now, all I can say is the persistance of everyone working with him and acknowledging this "glitch" is continuing to pay off. I wish you the best of luck in this struggle!

I would second polarbear. Our DS passed his conventional ophthalmologist exams with flying colors, including an extra convergence check I requested because I had convergence issues myself as a child. So I set that worry aside. When he began to refuse seatwork this year we learned the letters were dancing on the page. The developmental optometrist picked up major issues with convergence, accommodation, and tracking. He has been reading well beyond grade level - but with far too much effort.

I was highly skeptical myself (and my DH more so) until sitting in on the exam and watching the optometrist systematically zero in on where DS was having trouble.

Thank you.

Vision Therapy:
I have been reading a bit on vision therapy. I understand the skepticism but also understand those who have seen success are strong advocates--and that is always compelling. Our pediatrician was very against it when we approached her. I realize many conventional doctors are not bought in but at the time her reaction left a significant impression on DH and myself. I think we have opened up a bit (especially now that some insurance covers it) and may explore it if June tests leave Ed Psych with same conclusions as a year ago. He has been asked so many times about his vision and he says nothing dances, moves, blurs, etc. But Irealize that this is not conclusive.

connectindots...the underachievement is the term we keep throwing around to describe the discrepency in IQ to ACH results. Perhaps I am using the term incorrectly and it just caught on as school uses it only in conversation with me?

Masterofnone: I have heard of HG+ kids pretending not to be able to read. I am fairly confident that is not our case due to his errors he made and effort I saw put in. However, your second point is and was true. Recently he was assessed by reading tutor. She tested him at end of first, second and third grade reading level. His score never really changed in terms of RPM, errors and comprehension. her was consistently between 130-150 wpm (went up as grade levels went up); he consistently got 4-5 words wrong (most not context changing); and he consistently got 95%+ on comprehension. His reading of short and more instructional text is what I think we need to take a closer look at...

mykids...I believe my son is EG technically with a VCI in the PG range...so not far off (not that it makes a big difference at that aptitude level) What is LB testing? I am not familiar with that? And how was your son's achievement...was it all above grade level and without scatter? Did all LD assessments come back with no LD detection? That seems to be what is throwing everyone in our case...

LB is Lindamood Bell--very targeted towards dyslexia and processing disorders. Not too different from OG.

Achievement started out 2+ grade levels ahead and has decreased over the years to being about 1 grade level ahead. The fact that he is "stagnating" and not making the normal progression of an "average" student, much less an EG student is what is concerning to all. All LD assessments came back with no LD detection at this point, but no one really believes it b/c he was 5.3 when they were done and the threshold for a 5 year old is VERY different than that of a 12 year old. There is little doubt that if left untreated he would be dx later--likely in 6th grade. For all the obvious reasons, I clearly was unwilling to wait the 6 years for that to happen and then intervene. Hope that helps.

N.. I think you need more information. Can you readminister the WJ? This would document and quantify the effects of this year's tutoring and schooling. It sounds like he'd jump a huge amount, and it might expose a problem to focus your attention if there's an area that doesn't change.

I probably not "adding" much more, but here's a couple thoughts.
(And my son is hg+, so not same. How're ever, stronger in VCI then PRI)

My ds7 was tested 1 year ago as a k student, WJ showed reading at 3rd grade, math 2nd grade. Tester said she expected to increase with exposure (I was providing no math and limited reading.) It was also recommended to us to see a developmental optometrist. This vision therapy has changed my son. He is able to read and do work much easier with great endurance.

I am so happy we had evaluated as I'm sure it must have been very stressful to not be able to see well. He never voiced a problem, but I'm sure when you've always had a problem, it seems normal.

My kids...yes our stories are very similar then, aren't they? Should you have any additional advice let me know. I'll reread your posts but was it third grade you started to see the stressors? Also would you be able to highlight what "glitches" everyone saw specifically...I have not yet been able to reach a consensus on what his "glitch" looks like with any of his teachers. Did you go down the vision therapy road?

Geofizz. Hi! We are retesting in June and agree it would be great if information could be gleaned from the results! Our tester cautions that it is sensitive and a year may not be enough to reflect useful changes. I'm hoping it is

Melessa...thank you for sharing!

pm'd you with the details.

wanted to share my experience with VT. DS was diagnosed with convergence insufficiency when we were in the UK, I believe he was 3. Was not picked up here by an optometrist but when we went to see a pediatric opthal., she did she pick it up along with intermittent exotropia. DS never complained about headaches or seeing double or anything really, but at that age, he didn't express things like that much. In any case, he was about a year to 1.5 years ahead in reading for reading. What prompted us to seek vision therapy was the fact that yes, it was obvious he had the convergence issue (when focusing on a very close letter for example, coming to about an inch away from the bridge of his nose, he couldn't keep his left eye focused at close range, it would slide to the side after about 1 second of focusing). All his life he has had issues with catching balls, knowing where things were in his space..I mean we would say, it's right there to your left!! and he couldn't see it..But no problems with balance, riding bikes whatsoever.
Intense 4 months of therapy but almost all of it was at home, after meeting with doc every week. I'm not going to lie, it was tough. BUT, it has fixed his convergence issue. He can focus at close range very well now and his reading really took off after that.

This year we had a follow up appointment with another behavioral opt. (we moved), and he doesn't have the convergence issue, but still sees the exotropia. We never see it, but apparently it may not be visible to us. Another couple of thousands for therapy, so we called his first pediatric opthmal. and she doesn't recommend VT for this, stating that it really only helps with convergence which by the way she never recommended therapy for, just wait and watch.

We don't know if we should proceed or not. He does have struggles with homework sometimes and wonder if a)getting more VT would help and b)if it really works for exotropia.

On the reading note, your DS is obviously very gifted and my DD is HG but FWIW she didn't really read well and regularly until about 6 months ago. Preferred to be read to. But the rate in which she has progressed has been incredible. So in agreement with Polarbear, it is the rate in which she is tracking that is indicative of her abilities. And she sometimes gets very simple words wrong or substitutes but I believe it is due to her reading in her head so quickly and she's already processed some of the sentence before she spits it out (hope that makes sense). She can read much faster silently then out loud. Also when she first started to read regularly, she would often pause at or mistake the easy words and get words like "procrastination" for example. But she has now outgrown that.

N, vision therapy is controversial, but you'll also probably find that it's more widely accepted and practiced than you might anticipate. As I mentioned, I was very skeptical when it was suggested for our dd. Like your ds, she had never mentioned *anything* to us in anyway that suggested she had issues with her vision. Prior to neuropsych testing, she'd complained that she had difficulty reading what her teacher wrote on the board, so we'd had her eyesight checked by our regular eye dr and it was 20/20, no concerns. I did, however, know another mom who's dd had been through vision therapy and it had made a tremendous difference for her re reading ability, so she reassured me it was worth going through the eval. I still wasn't convinced, so I asked our eye dr expecting to hear that it was bogus nonsense (which is what our ped thinks), and instead found out that our eye dr feels it can be really really helpful for people who have vision issues due to muscle weakness. She helped me understand the difference in her exam vs the developmental optometrist - the conventional eye dr is looking at acuity of eyesight, the developmental optometrist is looking at how the eyes function together. So she totally believed it was possible that our dd could have had a 100% a-ok exam with her and still have vision issues. I also found out, when talking about it with a teacher at school, that a staff member at our school was undergoing vision therapy - her eyesight had begun to bother her at 40, so she just assumed it was normal aging and she was headed for bifocals, but that wasn't what was up - she had convergence issues that developed later in life, and she went through vt and it resolved.

SO.... we decided that it was worth at least going for the eval, which I was allowed to sit in on. At one point they asked my dd to tell how many points she saw on top of a baton held up about 6 feet away from her. There was one baton, she saw two points. She said two as if it was as natural as night and day, and had absolutely no idea that none of the rest of us weren't seeing two of everything also (she was 7 years old at the time). I have no idea if she'd had double vision her entire life, but once the vision therapists told us what signs to look for, we realized she'd probably always had double vision. So that's the thing with young children and vision - they've never looked through anyone else's eyes so they don't know they don't see the world the same way other people do. And double vision was tricky too because the brain will shut down the vision in one eye if it gets too overloaded with trying to process visual information (hence the double-vision seems to go away). That doesn't mean there isn't an issue though - when you are only seeing through one eye, peripheral vision is extremely limited, depth perception is off, and you tire quickly when trying to read etc.

Sorry for the long reply!


FWIW with reading, we have a dd (different dd) who has an actual reading challenge (not vision-related) - she's been through extensive testing by a reading specialist (vision-challenged dd also went through a not-quite-so-intensive dyslexia eval prior to her vision testing). I've found the reading evals to be really helpful - you might want to consider more in-depth reading testing too if your ds hasn't already had a thorough eval. I'm not sure what type of eval your tutor is using- there are literally (or at least it seems like it!) tons of different skills to assess when looking at the skills that together go into reading.



FWIW, our dd who has a reading challenge has a wide range of conflicting opinions/diagnoses depending on who evaluated her. Her 2nd grade teacher was concerned that her reading, although at grade level, should have been higher based on her verbal communication skills - so she was tested at school, found to be at grade level, hence no concerns from school. We (parents) were concerned, dd hated to read, so we had her evaluated by an independent evaluator with sped experience (evaluation included full ability vs achievement testing plus dyslexia screen). The tester found that dd had an issue with associative memory that significantly impacted her ability to associate a letter with a specific sound, hence the challenge with reading (although *not* a dyslexia diagnosis and not technically an LD, per the tester). DD was evaluated again a year later when we needed more help trying to figure out a game plan for remediating reading - this time by a reading specialist who administered a wide range of reading-skill-specific tests, and once again found the same issue with learning and remembering sight-sound correlations. The reading specialist actually diagnosed dd with dyslexia, and dd's been working with a tutor through the reading specialist on a specific reading program which has made a huge difference - but it didn't give us what we needed to fully understand the impact of her associative memory challenge with respect to other academics, and it also didn't give us the documentation we needed for accommodations at school that had been recommended by both of dd's previous testers. SO... we were referred by dd's ped for a neuropsych exam. Keep in mind, we have an older ds who is 2e, and his neuropsych exams have been extremely valuable in understanding his challenges and in putting together a roadmap forward, so we expected that we would get at least some clarity from dd's neuropsych exam. But nooooo... the ability scores didn't match her previous ability scores, her achievement scores were off the charts (makes no sense, if you believed the ability scores), and the neuropsych pooh-poohed the extensive testing run by the reading specialist and insisted that dd's only issue with reading was that she was bored. I know enough about my dd to know that the neuropsych was totally out of touch with the eval... but just wanted to put that out there as an example of how complicated getting to the root of issues can be with gifted children.

Again, sorry for the long ramble! Hopefully some of it helped

Best wishes,

polarbear

polarbear...

You asked about his PRI subtests.


Block Design 16 (he actually completed everyone one accurately and she went beyond and he was well in extended norms but due to timing rule his score does not reflect that. She believes this is a result of his relative weakness in processes.

Picture Concepts 16 (he hit the ceiling on similariaties in VCI plus ran out of questions in the extended norms. Thus this shows a strong verbal over nonverbal preference in her estimation.)

Matix Reasoning 22 (this is his extended norm score. I assume 19 without)

Picture Completion 15 (she did all subtests even though only core used in calcualtion. she did all subtests in order to gleam all useful information

READING EVALS
Tutor used CTOPP for phonics and something she said was part of the OG assessment tools. Here is text copied from her report:

His original O & G phonics assessment, which was completed on 9/4/13, was 76% on the core 153 sounds. His assessment completed on 2/11/14 showed 90% for an improvement of +14%.

For reading she lists "Qualitative Reading Assessment" and the book titles. I am not sure if this is the official name of what she used. His scores were very high...commentary notes he was skipping lines a few times but due to fluency will not track. She has tried to have him track with a ruler. He is doing better now that we mostly read on a kindle app with larger font.

She wrote this at the end of her summary
Although, X appears to function at a higher-grade level in his reading abilities, at some point his memory will break down this process. X’s parents have sought private reading tutoring to intervene and prevent this from happening. The goal of tutoring is to build X’s ability to decode and comprehend at a level commensurate with his ability level, not his grade level.

X has areas of relative weakness. First, he needs to work on his retelling and sequencing skills. Additionally, his ability to visualize text and the details within it are weak. While he can remember explicit text, he struggles with a coherent explanation for implicit information. He has a particularly difficult time transferring text from the board to his paper. We are working on transferring in chunks of 3-4 symbols at a time. For example, the word different would be copied dif-fer-ent by using the rhythm of the word. He needs to work on written expression so that he can retell not only orally, but on written paper.


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This may be actual test called Qualitative Reading Inventory. it was given to my son, too. It's pretty in-depth measuring sight words, fluency, comprehension, etc... I think you can see what it looks like on online if you google it.

Oh and my son's reading improved so much with vision therapy (jumped several grade levels) ... he also stopped hating reading and stop fatiguing so easily. he had terrible tracking prior to VT - now he tracks great and stops losing his place. We are big fans of VT here!