I wanted to get a sense of how other parents have their children participate in a talent searches. Do you have your child participate every year, periodically, or only once? What do you think are the benefits or drawbacks to yearly participation?
I generally believe in testing when there's a purpose, and you are planning to do something with the results. So, for my older kids, one took the SAT in middle school because her school pushed for it (part of the gifted program) and another chose to opt out. Since we weren't planning to do anything with the results, we were fine with that. Ds11 took the EXPLORE in 4th grade at school request, with our full agreement, because we had to make a decision on whether to bus to the MS the following year. He is in Algebra now and doing fine (which is one year ahead of our own gifted program, which does Algebra in 7th), but I think he'd probably be fine in Pre-Alg, too. He got a perfect score on the math section in 4th, but that by NO means meant that he was ready for Algebra the following year. A lot of it was maturity, making silly mistakes, carelessness, etc... a multiple choice test can only tell you so much! For my ds13, he took the SAT through the school as the older ones did, in 6th grade. I really didn't have any reason to test either of them again last year. We weren't planning on making any changes. This year, ds13 has expressed some interest in taking the SAT again, just to see where he's at. I think it's a comfort thing, going into HS (he's in 8th).
I know a lot of parents use them to advocate, but for us, we feel like our sons are being challenged and doing interesting stuff. Are they really using their full potential? Probably not, but that's only part of what we want them to do in MS. I'm happy if academics are generally good and they can also do music and sports and clubs, and of course, friendships. So, I understand why some parents want to do them every year, and why some parents only do them once. I think it just depends on the child and what you want to do with the information.
BTW, the child who opted out managed to get a very high score when she needed, and sailed through college, so although a few practice tests might be helpful, I honestly don't feel like kids need to take many tests in order to prepare. I think my opt-out dd's test anxiety at the time (when she was in 6th) might have resulted in a score that didn't really reflect her abilities (in other words, high, but not as high as her siblings, even though she is every bit as smart). I'm glad we listened to her and let her make the choice!
