I am wondering about the wording in the report you got for your WJ-III. In our experience, my kids do score much higher on WJ-111 compared to DRA levels. It's been my understanding that WJ doesn't well align well to classroom curriculum nor does AE or GE mean an actual curriculum level. My DS had GE at High school or above at age 8 on either WJ or WIAT. He didn't belong in HS or College level material at 8. My DD also had AE & GE equivalents way beyond the actually appropriate placement for her. I would ask your tester for a better explanation for the GE levels. I have not had a tester equate those to curriculum levels. In particular, a private tester because schools can vary so much from one another on curriculum.
I'm not a huge fan of DRA. My dd had trouble last year with it. She was unfamiliar with her tester and got super quiet during the testing. When she finally tested with a familiar face her score went up much close to her WJ scores. It has continued to rise as she gets a little more comfortable with the process. My dd is always reading way above her DRA scores. She reads almost any text in front of her but fluency in reading isn't the same as comprehension. I always know when she has picked something to far beyond her comprehension level. Every 2 seconds she is stopping to ask me a question about what she just read. I have actually gotten her a dictionary app to look up the words she does not understand. Listening to her read out loud she sounds like a little adult reading.
If you feel it's a real mismatch for your DS, I would argue for better placement. I don't know that I would use the GE vs DRA argument. The school will likely tell you that WJ-III doesn't match their curriculum as well as the DRA does. I would try to find other ways to demonstrate the mismatch. I actually took a video of my dd last year reading out loud and then discussing the book. As the school, kept saying her comprehension was low. My dd reads with great inflection with demonstrates in and of itself that she is comprehending the text. They next switched the reason said it was the retell. I actually took a video to demonstrate to them it was her comfort level with the tester. Oddly enough, they declined to watch the video .
They did agree to retest with a person she was comfortable with already.
I'm not sure your DS's age or grade but starting at or above level 28 the DRA goes from Oral retell to written retell. This was an issue for DD in first grade because she had a real weakness in handwriting. She would avoid it at all cost and it made her get stuck at 28 for a long time. Given you mention his WJ suggesting 3.0 or above, I am wondering is he getting stuck at 28 because of written responses? A 28 is the end of 2nd grade goal for 2nd grade and obviously isn't that far from a 3.6 GE. Maybe the discrepancy isn't that large and can be fixed with handwriting improvements like my DD. Also keep in mind, I have heard of schools that are unwilling to test past the end of the year goal. In 1st grade the year end is 16 and 28 for 2nd grade. Is that a possibility? My school thankfully doesn't use that philosophy but I have heard of many of them doing just that.
Just tossing ideas of possible reasons for the difference.
