I'm so sorry to hear this and I totally understand your frustration! With my one ds, his scores in 1st grade were abysmal (much, much worse than your dd... under the 20th%-ile on the non-verbal portion of the OLSAT). We knew it was NOT representative of his abilities, but of course, I felt like an idiot because I had definitely pushed for some acceleration (and yes, I knew it wasn't about me, but I did take it very personally, no matter how ridiculous that was... sigh). Anyway, through some talks with him, we eventually came to the conclusion that being read the questions was the issue (he said it was hard to hear them and hard to focus; he had some sensitivities to noise when he was younger). He read extremely fluently in first grade and I think he would have done much better with written instructions. He often "spaced out" in his thinking and was off in his own little world. Thank God they did a whole-school testing early in 2nd and he was immediately identified as gifted (only those recommended by parents or teachers were tested in first). He has never scored poorly on a standardized test again - he even rocked the SATs in 6th grade (given through his gifted program). But, I've never forgotten that abysmal test because it helps me remember to trust my OWN judgement.
And BTW, he was fine with not being identified in first. In some ways, I think it made him more empathetic - when his best friend, who
was identified in first grade (one of only two kids), didn't qualify to continue the gifted in middle school, he immediately talked about the tests just being one factor and often not getting it right.
I think my experience is not that unusual. My oldest (PG) was initially id'd as gifted, but barely. My second was not only not id'd in the first two tests, but we were told with a clucking sympathy that these tests (not real IQ, just the school ones)were very accurate and the numbers did NOT change. My youngest (thank God, I was tired by then) was id'd immediately, and I have to admit, it's a whole lot easier when the school tests match up with what you know is correct, but don't let this discourage you too much. You KNOW your daughter and you KNOW that this test did not accurately reflect her knowledge and her intelligence!
