Here's an interesting twist to the hot-housing IQ situation. Before my kids were involved, they selected local kids for pre-GT in 1st grade based on advanced reading. The GT teacher then coached these kids in what IQ testing entailed. I have no idea how far into she went...but I have a feeling the "gray" line at least was crossed. That stopped many years back, before we swung to another extreme of Nazi testing and hard core score cuts, LOL!
This is another thread entirely... I have been wondering a lot, though, about how this affects the haves vs. the have-nots. Our local elementary, too, starts pulling out kids who are achieving above avg in around 1st grade with a note that your child has not been formally ided as gifted, but is getting enrichment right now. The GT enrichment consists of a lot of the types of stuff one encounters on ability tests -- analogies, critical thinking games and worksheets, etc. Would not those kids then have an advantage when it gets to testing for GT id a few years later?
As of late, I've seen a board game in one of those educational games catalogues that has block designs that look nearly identical to what you do on the WISC. I've also managed somehow to get on the email listserv of a company that sells critical thinking workbooks and which sent out a rather disconcerting ad for workbooks that purport to have actual test questions from the WPPSI -- to prep for K admission in competitive places like NY that use a variant of the WPPSI called the ERB.
I couldn't bring myself to prep a kid like that for a test b/c it seems unethical and b/c I can't believe that it is in the child's best interests to appear more able than he is. However, I do wonder what it does to the entire reliability and validity of these tests.
