Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Is Talent Search testing becoming meaningless?

You must be kidding. The stat report can't be from 2010/11 data. My DS took EXPLORE last year, so I did some comparison for 2009/10 and 2010/11. It made sense to me at that time, since his science score was peculiar and easy to spot.

My ds has some exposure at school but even more of his exposure is his own reading and self learning style. I'm sure exposure matters on achievement testing but it doesn't have to be formal schooling or prepping.

I agree, and I wasn't necessarily talking about "formal" schooling, but I wonder if a gifted child who didn't have parents who exposed him to books and discussions and summer camps and I don't know - what I think most of us here do for our kids- would have a chance of being identified.

On prepping, I'm not sure how much you can prep a ND kid and get improved results on Talent Searches. I'm sure prepping a GT kid would most likely improve the scores. The kids have to have a certain level of readiness to teach higher levels. If I needed DS to have scores for entrance to a school or something of that nature. I'm sure I would have considered prepping him. Just like he will prep come college time.

That makes sense to me. Obviously, if all kids could benefit from accelerated math, we'd be teaching algebra in 5th grade instead of 8th or 9th in our public schools. I guess I just wonder how much of it is pure talent/capacity and how much is exposure.

After-school programs such as the Russian School of Math (RSM) http://www.russianschool.com/sat_results.html are producing some 7th-8th graders with high SAT math scores (average of 672 in their case). RSM is primarily about teaching math, not test prep (though there is not a bright line between those activities) , but many students who have been with RSM during elementary school are ready to do well on the SAT by 7th grade.

And I'm not knocking programs like RSM, or the other math prep programs out there. I would love to know, though, what percentage of award winners have done programs like RSM (or Khan Academy, or Kumon, or a computer class, etc) and what percentage are truly being instructed at grade level and are somehow able to make that leap.
I'm also NOT knocking the award winners at all or saying it's undeserved (especially since both my boys had scores at qualifying levels this year). I'm honestly just curious. For my ds12, who took the SAT through his school district, I've been talking to more parents since the results came out, and I was surprised at how many had bought SAT study guides.
And I don't think that's a bad thing - I bought those for my older kids and plan to buy them for my younger ones when they take it for real.
I think, for me, the difference is that way, way back when, when I was younger, the people who took talent search had never seen a test like that, had no prep, usually weren't getting any kind of enrichment (this was before it was such a big industry)... now, I think most kids taking it have had *some* kind of enrichment, if not necessarily prep. Back in my day, differentiation was unheard of - I was grade skipped when I was bored, but that was pretty much the end of it.

Two years ago in 4th grade (perhaps the bar is lower for 4th compared to the 6th grade criteria you reference?), my then just turned 10yo dd took the Explore cold. She was in a regular public school with a policy of in-class differentiation (vs. grade skip), i.e., she had no special academic training or test prep.

Our only prep was to give her the example test questions in the registration packet with a home made bubble sheet a few days in advance, to make sure she understood how to do a bubble test. I forget the composite score, but it earned her a bronze medal from NUMATS (tied for 3rd place for her grade level), and was at the 99th %ile based on the 8th grade norms.

What do you think accounted for such a high score, especially in math? Was the math she did at school and home truly at a 4th grade level and was she able to make that jump even though she had never seen some of the math before? Was she reading at a much higher level at school and home? Were you surprised that she scored so highly?
I do find the ACT/SAT scores more surprising than the EXPLORE scores, especially the math. I find it hard to believe that a child who wasn't already grade/subject or otherwise accelerated or enriched could possibly do all of the SAT/ACT math in 6th grade, just because it's not all intuitive - some stuff you need to learn, in the same way that you can be very gifted, but that doesn't mean if someone speaks Chinese you'll understand it.

I miss read the information. This is what they say


How to Read the Tables and Charts
You need to know just a few things to understand this report and to see how your child’s scores compare with those of other NUMATS participants. Approximately 25,000 students in grades 3 through 9 participated in the 2012 NUMATS program. This statistical summary is based on scores from an even larger sample of NUMATS test-takers, including all those from 2010 and 2011 (over 50,000 students). Using such large numbers is a significantly reliable method of establishing percentiles for this year’s NUMATS test-takers.

As you might expect, her experience has been spotty. Her elementary school was on two campuses (K-2 and 3-5) with very different principals. She had excellent in-class acceleration in math in 2nd grade, but learned almost no new math in 3rd. Her 4th grade teacher was opposed to acceleration but introduced off-curriculum math topics. (As a current 6th grader, she is in Honors Algebra.)

For reading, she has been an insatiable reader since age 2 - she goes through books in quantity. I'm pretty sure she learned virtually nothing in school related to reading until around 4th grade.

The most surprising part of the Explore for us was the Science. I expected this to be her weakest area due to not having the exposure in school. She aced that one, though, and as far as we can tell from what our kids reported, it actually required minimal content knowledge. Rather, it tested reading and logic skills. The test provided short texts with data, graphs and other info., and asked the kids to draw conclusions (without bringing in prior knowledge about the topic).

I think it's important to realize that not all kids who score at very high levels on such tests have been test prepped or formally taught higher level material. To me, that belief feels a bit like what the schools always tell me -- that it can't be possible for my kids to know what they know unless I'm some crazy nut making my kids do math 3 hours a day.

Given internet access, the ability to type searches, and really good reading ability, there's not much a kid can't learn if motivated. Some kids are. For a kid who is curious, one thing leads to another and the seeking of information in one area leads to finding information in another area, which leads to new terms to search, etc. Some kids do their own test prep by self-teaching all the time, for the joy of it, not because they are supposed to or are taught a higher level curriculum. For some kids, this can happen quite early. I stopped understanding most of what my son talks about before he got out of elementary.

My son took the ACT very early while in elem and did well. I can understand scoring high in English, reading, and science because those are mostly reason and reading based tests and he's good at reading and reasoning. I was surprised at the percentile scored in math, which was broken down for topics and included high % for courses where he had no exposure that I knew about. When I asked him about the math, he said that none of it was hard and even not having geometry or trig, he could figure almost all the questions out if he was given enough time. He had to rush a bit and didn't figure them all out, but certainly managed most of them. My experience with PG kids is that they often know many things they "shouldn't" know based on exposure or formal teaching. It shouldn't be surprising that a kid who can self-teach reading can also self-teach math.

I confess that I always found the Explore scores taken as DYS levels to be low. I suspect that the group taking such tests are not in the top 5% as expected (most talent searches require parent agreement that their children had some subscore in the top 5%), but rather something like top 1/3 or 1/4 of ability tests. It's not unusual for a kid with multiple tests given in ability and achievement over time to have some subscore at 95%. Many schools offer GT screening for all kids, so you wouldn't even have to be seeking out testing options to have such results. Even if parents are always telling the truth, the sample is likely not really a GT sample. And if that's true, then how can we figure out what level would really be 99% or 99.9?

The most surprising part of the Explore for us was the Science. I expected this to be her weakest area due to not having the exposure in school. She aced that one, though, and as far as we can tell from what our kids reported, it actually required minimal content knowledge.

I found this with ds10 as well - he got a 22, which is in the 95th%-ile for 8th graders - and he has NO interest in science. They do almost no science in elementary school and it is not a topic about which he chooses to learn.

(As a current 6th grader, she is in Honors Algebra.)

Is this a normal option for 6th graders or is this because of outside testing? Here, where 9th grade algebra is the norm, it would be very unusual to allow this.

I think it's important to realize that not all kids who score at very high levels on such tests have been test prepped or formally taught higher level material. To me, that belief feels a bit like what the schools always tell me -- that it can't be possible for my kids to know what they know unless I'm some crazy nut making my kids do math 3 hours a day.

I'm sorry if my post came across this way - I absolutely did NOT mean that. I would consider "exposure," though, to include self teaching, out of self desire. Heck, if the SAT tested train knowledge, my son would score 800, and it bores dh and me to tears.

I confess that I always found the Explore scores taken as DYS levels to be low. I suspect that the group taking such tests are not in the top 5% as expected (most talent searches require parent agreement that their children had some subscore in the top 5%), but rather something like top 1/3 or 1/4 of ability tests.

I don't have a strong opinion on this. Both my kids who took EXPLORE had no problem exceeding-with room to spare-DYS levels. OTOH, the one child whom we have had tested and for whom we at least have test data showing to be PG+ is not one that I imagine would have scored particularly highly on EXPLORE. She was never interested in sitting at a computer or even sitting with books. She was very active, very artsy, very musical as a younger child (she now works as a research analyst, so she did become more focused on traditional academics). The IQ is there and math and science have come quite easily to her, but she certainly had no interest in self-learning it while in elementary.
I am also curious why your son would take the ACT very early while in elementary. To me, that does show parent interest/motivation of some sort, since it's unusual to take it even in middle school, and most kids can't sign up on their own. Again, I'm not saying that's bad in any way and I'm not suggesting that you are pushing. I guess I'm just wondering about the changes in Talent Search over the past MANY years and how all the resources out there (for self study, classes, enrichment, etc) have changed things.

I don't think that this is bad AT ALL - I'm truly just curious. I'm comparing three different groups of gifted kids- my own generation, my oldest kids (now adults) and my younger ones (elementary/middle). Each group has had many more options for learning, including self learning (my older kids didn't have Khan Academy, Art of Problem Solving, or even a home computer or TV when they were young). It honestly started as more of a philosophical musing... not as an accusation against any parent.

The full answer to that question is a long one, but the 6th grade algebra placement had everything to do with internal testing/acceleration on the part of the district, and nothing (or little) to do with outside testing. Our neighborhood middle school offers one section (25 kids?) of Honors Algebra that has only 6th and 7th graders- but it may be the only public school in our state to do so. And the class is taught by a teacher with an MS in Math, another rarity.

Here's how our kids ended up in Algebra in 6th grade. Historically, our district has given 5th graders a math test for placement in 6th. In 4th grade, our kids (twins) were invited by the district to take this test, without any real explanation of why - but we said yes. It turns out the test is also used as a qualifier for a district wide math pull out for 5th graders. Our kids' 3-5 school is a differentiation-R-us, pullouts-R-bad kind of school, so when they heard we were considering signing the kids up for the pullout (dd had the district-wide high score on the qualifier), they (principal/teacher) went through the roof.

After tense discussions a compromise was reached -- the kids WOULD be taught the curriculum used in the pullout, except that they would receive the curriculum from their classroom teacher in 5th grade and would NOT attend the pullout. As a result, when the actual 6th grade placement process came around at the end of 5th, they wound up with a placement in Algebra.