Ok, so a little background info...
I have an 8 year old son who is in the 2nd grade. I, and most that know him, have thought of him to be advanced from a very early age. (My mother had both me and my sister tested when we were younger and we both scored as "gifted". At the end of 5th grade I was asked to skip 6th grade and move on to 7th grade.)
By the time he was 2 years old he could count to 15 in English and 5 in Spanish, name shapes, colors, body parts from head to toe and was starting to write letters and numbers.
Before he entered Kindergarten at age 5 he was already counting to 100 in English, 20 in Spanish and 10 in German. He could identify colors in English and Spanish. He knew the days of the week and the months of the year. He could recognize more complex shapes (if he saw a stop sign he would say that it was a octagon). He could recognize cones, cylinders, spheres, etc. He was doing addition and subtraction and understood the concept of multiplication and some simple algebra.
For as long as I can remember he has had a vocabulary beyond his years and around Kindergarten age he was saying things like: "It was mediocre." rather than saying it wasn't very good or "We had a conversation." rather than just saying he talked to someone. I remember the kids had to do oral reports about the States and days or even weeks later he would spout off facts about the States that the other kids did their reports on. "Hey mom, did you know that Delaware has no sales tax?" What kind of 5 year old cares enough to retain that kind of information?
When he was in Kindergarten the kids had to learn a list of 65 reading words before they were passed to 1st grade. He not only learned those words but in a couple of weeks he also mastered the Dolch Word List-220 words and 95 nouns.. and then moved on to Fry Instant 600 Word List.
In 1st grade he buzzed through the entire year with straight A's. I found myself worried that he wasn't getting challenged enough after he came home with his shirt cut up in several places. From what I gather, he had finished his work and had extra time to get his scissors out and shred his shirt in several different places. I asked his teacher to look into getting him tested and she gave me the run around for the next 3 months until the school year ended.
He has done well this year but has had some struggles. His excitement about school has rapidly declined this year, which is heartbreaking for me. I have a hard time telling if it's due to him getting older, being lazy, maybe due to the material he is learning or the teacher. I don't really know. He finds math to be "boring". He has had to do timed math tests and has really struggled with them and in all honesty I think it is because his mind moves so quickly that he can't stop and focus on each problem. You can see it all over his face when we do the practice tests at home. He knows the material, but he can't do well on timed tests. Other than that, his grades are still high.
After fighting for a year+ to get him tested, I finally got the school to start the process. The assistant principle called me on the 4th of this month and told me that he did not score high enough on the Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Achievement to be considered to go any further for gifted testing. His overall score was an 80 and he needed a 95 or higher.
I don't really understand the results and what everything means. I feel like the results may not be accurate.
I wanted him to be tested so that I would know for sure where he stands and make sure that he is in the right placement in school. Now, I feel like I am back where I started...not knowing if he really is gifted or it's just me being a biased parent. It is frustrating.
Before my son entered school I thought he had ADHD, due to his behavior. I started doing some research and found that most of his ADHD-like behaviors were identical to those of gifted children. Learning about the behaviors of gifted children and reading about the overexcitabilities in gifted children was like reading a story about MY son. He has almost every single characteristic. It was eye opening but now I find myself second guessing what I thought I knew already.
I need some advice. Where should I go from here? Am I right to think that he is gifted or was I just being overzealous? Is it possible for a gifted child to score low on the WC III?
