I'm surprised to see dyslexia mentioned.
funtimes, I have a dyslexic dd who flew under the radar for quite a long time - her dyslexia presents differently than typical dyslexia, and she was able to compensate for it because of her other strong abilities. I regret not digging into what was up with her reading earlier in her school career, because even though she was compensating she was consistenly losing ground and by the time she was diagnosed she'd developed a very healthy dislike of reading as well as lost a great deal of vocab development that her peers who were reading for fun were gaining. She's been through several years of reading tutoring now and is above grade level in comprehension, but the differences in vocabulary are still huge.
As far as academic fluency, what are they actually asked to do during testing?
Academic fluency on the WJ Achievement tests is a combination of scores of reading fluency, writing fluency and arithmetic fluency. Each of the fluency tests is timed.
And how do I ask for more challenge when in many areas, he's right in the middle of the pack? I'd leave it alone except he tells me he does a lot of waiting around to learn and seems to be losing his spark.
I'd first try to figure out what's really going on with the differences in test scores. If there's a learning challenge, you need to remediate and put accommodations in place where appropriate. It's most likely very real that he's bored with the intellectual level of what's being presented in the classroom, but he also might in fact be very challenged with some of the tasks required of him in the classroom. Once you've figured out what's up with any challenges, and made a plan for remediating and accommodations, then you should be able to successfully advocate for appropriate intellectual placement and challenge.
Best wishes,
polarbear
