My first post, but been a lurker for a while. First of all, thanks to everyone who contributes to this wonderful community. Personally, I have immensely benefited through this forum and educated myself on various topics related to gifted parenting.
Past/Background:
I have been thinking of getting my DS10 tested by a psychologist for last 2 years. But, we have been putting it off primarily due to steep expenses involved. Also, it's been a blessing that my son's teachers had been very supportive in advocating for enrichment at school. Two+ years ago, he was tested by his gifted teacher using CoGAT (sp?) when he was in 2nd grade. Then he was recommended for grade acceleration skipping 3rd. Since then, we have moved to a new better school district recently and he is now the youngest child in his 5th grade class.
Today:
So, I finally bit the bullet and shelled out $$ and got my DS10 tested for both IQ and achievement tests. My primary purpose was to see if he would qualify for DYS. Unfortunately, his IQ scores fell short, but his achievement test results did meet DYS qualification criteria. While it's not the end of the world if he doesn't get into DYS, I would like to do the best we can with the application. At this point, I realize that I don't have a choice but take the portfolio route, but I wanted to seek assistance on a few questions I have:
1. What weight does DYS give to achievement tests versus IQ tests? Are they treated equally or differently?
2. Will it generally help if I get more than 2 reference letters from son's teachers?
3. DS loves computers and programming. He developed Android apps when he was 7/8. What's the best way to portray such examples in the portfolio?
4. Any other creative suggestions to strengthen a case for DYS?
Please offer any advice you can give!!
For your reference, below are recent test results:
- WISC-IV (IQ test):
Scale - Sum of scaled scores, Comp score, Percentile
Verbal Comprehension (VCI) - 49, 138, 99%
Perceptual Reasoning (PRI) - 38, 117, 87%
Working Memory (WMI) - 27, 120, 91%
Processing Speed (PSI) - 26, 118, 88%
Full Scale (FSIQ) - 140, 130, 98%
- WIAT-III (Achievement test):
Subtest - Raw score - Standard score - Percentile
Reading Comprehension - 40* - 125 - 95%
Math Problem Solving - 59 - 144 - 99.8%
Word Reading - 69 - 134 - 99%
Pseudoword Decoding - 50 - 139 - 99.5%
Numerical Operations - 46 - 160 - >99.9%
Spelling - 59 - 159 - >99.9%
Composite reading - 273 - 145 - 99.9%
Composite Math - 304 - 154 - >99.9%
Also, DS10's EXPLORE tests from Feb 2013 qualify for DYS.
English - 21 (missed 4 on rhetorical) 87%
Reading - 25 100%
Math - 18 83%
Science - 14 11%
Composite - 20 92%
According to DYS site, Composite, Reading and Math scores qualify for 5th grade.
Thank you in advance for reading my post!!
Last edited by Rayson; 04/14/13 06:19 PM.
