Our local school district cutoff is August 31, which meant DS, born in late October, was just slightly too young to enter Kindergarten last year. He is in a private Montessori program this year (was previously in a general daycare/preschool). I had hoped he'd be able to enroll in the public Montessori program which combines grades K-2 to get the best of both worlds as far as "age appropriate grade" and "ability appropriate work", but he lost the lottery. It seems he will be stuck in a regular classroom. Now my dilemna is.... settle for Kindergarten, or shoot for 1st grade?
I'm hoping to hear advice/other experiences. I have literally no one
else to talk to about this except you very fine strangers on the Internet.
Anyway, DS (currently 5.5) recently took the WPPSI and his scores are kind of allover the place, which the tester said wasn't too abnormal for his age, plus he just squeaks in as qualifying for ADHD.
Verbal comprehension: 105, 63%
Visual spatial: 148, 99.9%
Fluid Reasoning: 124, 95%
Working memory: 116, 86%
Processing speed: 97, 42%
Full scale: 123, 94%
The reviewer wrote the results "should be considered an underestimation... due to challenges related to motivation" which more or less translates to DS refusing to play along.
Block design : 19
Information : 15
Matrix reasoning: 14
Bug Search : 12
Picture Memory : 12
Similarities : 7
Picture Concepts: 14
Cancellation : 7
Zoo Locations : 13
Object Assembly : 17
The evaluator noted that "on similarities, sometimes [he] answered with more complex answers than were necessary. This likely supressed his score". I believe cancellation is the subtest where he did the form as if it were connecting the dots.
On the WIAT-III, his overall achievemenet:
Early Reading Skills : 75%
Math Problem Solving : 93%
Written Expression : 66%
Oral Expression : 55%
Listening Comprehension: 58%
Total : 84%
It was noted that his oral expression scores were suppressed by his "refusal to continue" on the oral word fluency subtest.
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Long story short, his test scores are likely an underestimate of abilities as stated by the evaluator, he may have ADHD, and may be comparatively weak in processing speed. However, his achievement is above average for his age; the grade-comparisons the evaluator showed me (but didn't include in the report) showed him working at or above mid-Kindergarten level in all areas. His Montessori teacher has said he thinks he would be ok in 1st grade next year.
It seems like he'd be better off NOT in a K classroom learning things he already knows... I don't know why I'm so reluctant to plunge ahead.
