Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Tests to Help with Acceleration Advocacy

It probably depends on your district, but I suspect that you would not get very far with just IQ scores on a 1st grader. In my experience, the school may look at your outside scores, but will likely proceed only after their own testing. These are typically end-of-grade subject tests for one or more years up as well as some kind of ability testing. If you do have outside achievement testing, they will likely trust a test adminstrated uniformly (such as Explore, ACT, SAT) more than an individually administered test (such as Woodcock Johnson, Wechsler) especially by an unknown adminstrator.

Writing ability can be a deal-breaker in some districts as well. Personally, I did not feel comfortable trying to accelerate my DS until he was 7 and in second grade and I was confident that he would be able to keep up with the writing required by 3rd/4th grade math.