Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment WJ III results

Well, I pushed the school to give DS8 an achievement test and now we have the results. I wanted it done for two main reasons... the first because I wanted to see where he was scholastically, and also because I was hoping that he would qualify for DYS. Alas, that doesn't seem to be the case. Here are the results:

Brief Achievement- SS 141, GE 10.5

Board Reading- SS 133, GE 9.4
Broad Math- SS 138, GE 6.3
Broad Written Lang- SS 138, GE9.1

Brief Reading- SS 133, GE 9.9
Brief Math- SS 138, GE 6.7
Math Calc Skills- SS 132, GE 5.6
Brief Writing- SS 142, GE 13.0
Written Expression- SS 122, GE 5.9

Letter-word Id- raw 64, SS 129, GE 8.9
Reading Fluency- raw 61, SS 135, GE 8.8
Calculation- raw 21, SS 135, GE 5.9
Math Fluence- raw 65, SS 115, GE 5.0
Spelling- raw 51, SS 149, GE 15.3
Writing Fluency- raw 17, SS 116, GE 4.9
Passage Comprehension- raw 38, SS 130, GE 13.0
Applied Problems- raw 42, SS 130, GE 7.8
Writing Samples- raw 19-C, SS 121, GE 8.0

So this isn't quite enough to qualify for DYS, and that's a bummer, but the bright side is that the school is finally doing more for my son. He's been subject accelerated in math to 5th grade (and is loving it! It's not new, but it's not boring) and also to 5th for reading/language arts. He doesn't want to full grade skip because he likes the kids in his 3rd grade class, and the school doesn't like full skips anyway. This seems to be a good solution for us, and so far is working out.
--side note-- we almost didn't get the 2 grade subject skip because the school was afraid of what they would do with him next year. The school is K-5, so no 6th grade material. I had to beg quietly not to hold him back now because of a bridge we might have to cross in the future. Also, it wasn't the teacher who was interested in seeing what might be the best fit for my son, but the 3-5th Counselor. He arranged testing, met with the other teachers, and advocated for my son. I'm still waiting for the meeting I requested 5 weeks ago with his regular teacher. She seems to be in no hurry. Good thing I didn't hold my breath!

Awesome news.

Don't forget that now that he is grade-skipped, he will have more opportunity for instruction that will help his acheivement to come up to his ability level. He might make DYS levels yet if he gets the chance to move ahead more at his own pace.

Hadn't thought of that, aculady! Maybe there's hope yet...

This forum has been a huge help. Before reading about other people's situations, I didn't know I could ask for testing, or subject acceleration. Didn't know they even existed. I had just been relying on the supplementing that we do at home, or through the University classes he attends. (BTW I'm so excited.. just got a note from the Prof that DS8 came in 7th out of 25 for the Astr. 280 midterm-- a suprise because there's no textbook, just lectures and DS hates to write so no notes to review before the test. Also turns out it was all essay questions, so I had pretty much written it off... seems like DS is always suprising me!)

I wish that the achievement testing tested the subjects DS is crazy about. Not realistic though, I know.

You might want to consider EXPLORE testing through one of the talent searches, too.

Thanks, I'll look into it. Is EXPLORE something I could go through the school for or something I would need to look into doing privately?

Yup -
Plus you can apply with the Portfolio option - send in the essays he wrote for his college class. It's really hard to get achievement scores as high as the IQ scores when the Working Memory and Processing Speed are not particularly strong. I think that it's great that his Achievement scores are as high as they are given his spread.

Also great that the school was willing to give Math Acc a try. Does he need to be in 4th grade for LA?

Also also great that he has friends in his 3rd grade class.

Smiles,
Grinity

Thanks for the encouragement, Grinity.

He's in 5th right now for LA, and the 5th teacher is concerned that his self-esteem might be affected because the work is a challenge for him now. I would like to let him try it for longer than a week before making a judgement... if it is too difficult, or DS decides he'd like to step back from it then I'm on board, but I'd like him to at least get used to what her expectations are before throwing in the towel. The reading material is easy for him, the disecting of it is new and a challenge. But he still likes it, so I'm game for letting him continue it.

So far as the essay questions on the midterm go, when I asked the Prof about it, he said that DS's answers were "delightfully brief"... implying that he was both being kind to DS and also getting tired or reading the *ahem* wordy answers by some of his other students while grading the tests. I fear DS's answers perhaps weren't actually essays, and therefore probably not such great material to send to DYS. Haven't actually seen them yet, though... possibly will get them after today's class.

We've started a folder on the desktop that we call "DS's Ideas" and perhaps that could help? (Essentially when he has one of his more out there ideas, I ask him to type it out-- partly to work on typing, partly to practice putting thoughts into words for others to read)

I guess I just don't know what would qualify as unusual enough to be appropriate to send to DYS. I might be having that old "fear of rejection pre-reaction" again... don't know. Where I get afraid to try because I might fail in the future... also maybe afraid that I'm blowing it up in my mind and he's not quite right for this program. (Proud Mama Syndrome)

You can find out more about talent search testing with the EXPLORE through Belin-Blank here:

http://www.education.uiowa.edu/html/belinblank/TalentSearch/

Carnegie-Melon also has an EXPLORE talent search program, and there may be others in your area.