Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment New Here! Help me with these WJ-III Scores?

HI! I'm brand new. Never posted anything anywhere! But I need some help. I have an end of third grade, just turned 9 girl. She was super early with things, reading at 3 and long chapter books in K along with doing multiplication and other advanced things..She started public school (from Montessori) this year and seems to be bored. She is losing interest and "slipping" ike not reading the directions...because she has never had to to get the answers. So, I have requested that she skip 4th Grade Math in the Fall and start directly in 5th Grade Math. I have a meeting with the principal to discuss on Thurs...

My question is...are these test result good enough to present, or should I leave them home! It seems like most of you have test results at 99.9%....My daughter seems to be all over the place!

WJ-III

TOTAL ACHIEVEMENT: 99.6

BROAD READING: 97

BROAD MATH: 96

BROAD WRITTEN LANGUAGE 99.9

ACADEMIC SKILLS: 99

ACADEMIC APPLICATIONS: 99

ACADEMIC FLUENCY: 95

MATH CALCULATION SKILLS 92

WRITTEN EXPRESSION 99.9

LETTER - WORD IDENTIFICATION: 9x (Can't read that one) Very Advanced

READING FLUENCY 98

CALCULATION: 94

MATH FLUENCY: 72

SPELLING 99

WITING FLUENCY 93

PASSAGE COMPREHENSION: 86

APPLIED PROBLEMS 9X....VERY ADVANCED

WITING SAMPLES 99.9

As you can see, she seems to be all over the place. I can see that she needs a challenge and is begging to take an online course, but will these scores be good enough to warrent that? I have no idea how to interprit! I would be very appreciative of ANY feedback! Thank you Sooo much!

I don't know if I would say that those scores all over the place. They'are all pretty high, and there are a lot of 99+ numbers in there. Her Broad Written Language score would qualify her for DYS, if you also submitted qualifying IQ scores or a good enough portfolio. Welcome!

Hi sydness! Welcome to the group!

I'm by no means a testing expert, but I don't think I'd call your DD's (dear daughter's) results "all over the place." They seem to be consistently high save the math fluency. That's awesome and bodes well! Just didn't want you to play down these great results!

Any chance you have ability testing to go with the achievement scores, like WISC or SB-5 or KABC-II? Those would certainly help clarify the picture.

Hmmm..no ability test. I am hoping these results will be enough for her school to provide an ability tests as personal funds are low. I guess I'm a little confused because I am reading that to be qualified at "gifted" you need to score a 130 or above. Is that is just one area? There are many areas she did not score above 130.

Is that...130...the part on the test that says...SS?

For that part it reads
Oral Language 129
Brief Achievement 134
Total achievement 140
Brief Reading 125
Brief Math 129
Brief Writing 153
Broad Reading 127
Broad Math 129
Broad Written Language 149
Math Calculation Skills: 121
Writeen Expression: 148
Academic Skills 136
Academic Fluency 129
Adademid Applications 141

And then has a bunch of groups that repete scores over and over..I'm very confused with these results.

I guess when I say all over the place, I'm looking at
Story Recall: 109
Understanding Direction: 133

Thank you for getting back to me! I am happy with her scores, I guess I'm just not sure they are good enough to present while asking for "special placement" for my daughter next year.

To qualify for the DYS, I could certainly put together a portfolio. Will an IQ from anywhere work? Or does it have to be through them. I will have to do some reading I guess.

Thank you so much Dottie!
Maybe you know how to make sense of this..

Applied Problems:
Raw - 43
W - 526
GE - 8.4
Easy to Diff - 6.2 - 11.2
RPI - 100/90
SS(68% Band) -124 (121-128)
AE 13-11

I don't see a %....I think it might say 95%....but other 95% are put in the advanced category...Her Applied Problems were marked in the "very advanced" category.

hmmm...thanx SOOOOOOO VERRRRY much...I am very new to this, but I believe my daughter would benefit from a challenge next year!

Wow! You are a fountain of information! Thank you VERY much.
No, well, kind of. they let you know that your child is gifted in at the end of grade 4. In grade 6, they have an accelorated Math program. I was hoping to have her complete the 4th math over the summer, as I'm sure she can do quickly and take only math with the 5th graders.
The school says that they "differentiate" but so far that has not worked. DD enjoys learning new things every day and so far she has only been getting harder worksheets to fill out. Sometimes she has to look in her book to learn the new concept because it was not taught in class. I just think it would be so much easier for everyone, including the teachers if she were being presented new material with the rest of the class.

In 6th grade, I wouln't be opposed to having her rejoin the rest of her class-mates as they enter into the 6th grade advanced math class because I'm sure that the teacher of that class is capable of dealing with advanced students.

I have a meating with the principal of the school on Thursday and I'm not sure WHAT is going to come of it. But I am open to any suggestions that they may have. JUST NO DIFFERENTIATION! IT IS NOT WORKING!

"While there are a lot of 99.9th scores on this site, the majority of identified gifted children have achievement data very similar to your daughter's. While GT is often called >130, statistically speaking, the bulk of those children will land pretty darn close to that 130 mark. Those that are considerably higher are much rarer."

Makes a lot more sense to me when you say that. Cause I KNOW her and I KNOW that she needs a little more...but her scores seemed to not back me up! But maybe the do! I WILL present them at my meeting. Thank you!

So, for my meeting, I have:

WJ-III results

Report cards from pre-2, all saying she was working above grade level, and Montessori report cards actually give you the aread in which she was practicing and proficiant...so her Kinder card says that she is practicing easy multiplication...

I have some writing samples of when she was in Kinder and workind with the first graders for writing workshop,

I have a drawing or two from when she was 4 complete with wheelchairs and a person, and a background...very advanced drawing.

I have her math practice book from FIRST grade which inculded division (5697/4) and multiplication (3014x3) addition and subtraction (6541-2216) She used manipulatives to get the answers, which proves she understands the concepts - not the other way around like I feer they will tell me.

I have a worksheet of equivalant fraction, from 1st or 2nd grade. These were only given this year to the students who were ahead.

I also have a worksheep from first grade with word problems...

"Sherri went to Disney World. She had 6 favorite "
rides. She went on eash of those rides 5 times. How many times did she ride in all?

The report cards have paragraphs...

second grade: "Vanessa is bright, inquisitive, friendly, and self-motivated. She is interested in all that is available to her, including math. Tihs year, I see a difference in her enjoyment of math work. She has a definite preference for working abstractly rather than using the manipulative materials. She now has a very solid foundation in the four operations from learning with the materials , and she is truly ready to set them aside to a large extent."

First grade:
"V. continues to be a very interested and self-motivated learner. She is extrememtly capable and excels in all areas of study. I still see that she has a preference for language arts and art. However, V seems to be eager to learn about everything that she can.

I have seen much growth for V. in math. She is able to solve problems in all four operations using manipulative materials. We have recently bgun to apply these skills to solving problems with fractions. Addition in becoming more atuomatic for her and she already shows evidence of working toward abstraction. She enjoys learning new math concepts, grasps them easily and is able to apply them to new work.
.....
...v. is extremelty conscientious. She applies herself to her work but continues to be able to balance work with connecting with friends.

V. writes with ease. She excels at spelling, and is presently working in the third grade book in our spelling series. She applies correct spelling to her writing. We will be focusing more on rules of capitalization, punctuation, and sentence structure this spring. I think V. will enjoy this work. She continues to make progress in grammar as well. It has been fun introducing V. to new books, and to see her appreciating high quality literature, and sharing this interest with peers, in addition to her many personal reading choices."

She attended Public school for 3 months in the fall of 2nd grade
"V's oral reading fluency rose from 146 to 170 words per minute, which is phenomenal. Her already excellent writing also improved and her spelling is great. She also understands what she reads.

V. excels in every area of math that we explore. Specifically she did well with place value, problem solving, addition and subtraction straegies, patterns and expressing mathemtacial ideas in writing.

V. is an exemplary student in all ways, including work ethic, attention behavior and initiative."


So...we move...Now, this was her first full year at public school..

AND...for her second term in thrid grade she got this comment.

TERM 1 of thrid grade:
During Guided Reading, V is always eager to share her insights and observations during small group discussions and makes high level, real world connections to the material she is reading. We are working with V to compose written responses that are succinct, including information from the text to support her responses. Writing seems to be a real interest to V and her writer's workshop pieces are progressing nicely. She is writing non fiction and fiction pieces with a focus and a clear beginning, middle and end. She will continue to work on adding elaboration and detail to her pieces as well as focusing on applying her spelling and punctuation skills to her written work.
"V is currently reading text that is considered to be above grade level. Although she demonstrates her strong comprehension and critical thinking orally, her written repsonses continue to develop. V will work to add supporting details and include explicit information from the text to support her answers. Vanessa continues to progress in the area of writing. Her writes stories with a clear beginning, middle and end and is including elaboration and detail in her writing. She will continue to work to expand upon the key events in her story. V excels on weekly spelling tests and editing tasks, although is not always applying these skills to her written work. V will continue to work on self editing as we expose her to higher level editing skills during writing conferences"


SOOOOO
The report cards in third grade don't seem as great as before...any Ideas about that? Also, I was wondering if the comments from the previous report cards help with my case of skipping 4th grade math, or will I be wasting my time presenting them to the principal...

My meeting is tomorrow and I am trying to get organized! NOT an easy thing for me to do! AT ALL!
Any advice would be very welcome.
You are all sooooo nice here!

I know I'm writing a LOT..
But I have to add

My daughter gets a pre-test on 15 words on Monday. She gets them all right and gets 5 bonus word. She alphabetizes them, writes them in sentences and get a worksheet through-out the week. Takes the Friday test and gets them all right again. She has such a hard time motivating herself to do this homework. Yesterday, she did her page of alphebitizing as a mirror image. The teacher will have to hold the page to a mirror to correct it. I thought this would be a good thing to bring to my meeting, as she it shows that she is seeking harder work. Yes? Or does it show she is causing trouble? Either way, it shows she needs SOMETHING! RIGHT?

Sydness,

I hope your meeting goes well! It is obvious to me that she could work up a level. Hopefully the school administration will see it that way too. I have a DS9 that would do well to move up a grade or 2 in math, but I have never been able to accomplish it because of the way the school schedule runs. ie 5th graders and 4th graders do math at different times of the day and it is different everyday....so the logistics make it impossible. It is very frustrating! In first and second grade, the teacher would just give him harder versions of the same problems the other children were doing. (ie 2031-382 instead of 20-3). His 3rd grade teacher was terrible with differentiation. I'm looking forward to this year where at least they start doing levels in math, so he will be in the highest math group.