I am a teacher and have recently joined the committee that handles GT identification for our school. We are a diverse school in a college town (lots of very educated parents)--half middle/upper middle class kids and half low income (free/reduced lunch). Half of our students are ESL students for whom English is not a first language. We have struggled to figure out the best way to identify GT kids. Up until now we have depended on parent or teacher referrals and then tested with the Cogat (that is the test our district uses)or Naglieri for ELL kids. This year we have decided to test all native English speaking kids with the Cogat in spring of 1st grade and all ELL kids with the Naglieri, rather than testing only by parent referral. Is the Cogat an OK test for GT kids? What about the Naglieri (I know there really are even fewer options for children who are not native English speakers) I know that I've read here that the Cogat can have problems, but if so, what do you experts recommend? How do you think GT kids best identified in public schools, knowing that we can't possibly do a WISC or any individually administered test for every child in the school? I'd love some thoughts/suggestions. Thanks!
