Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment HUGE testing/ability discrepancy. Help, please?

Quick background: Kid has been reading phonetically since age 22 months, chapter books since age 3. Comprehension is extraordinary. Math is good, too...multiplication at 3, division soon after (long division within 5 minutes of teaching a couple of weeks ago)...checked school curricula for K-2 and she had complete mastery of all topics before starting K (without any exaggeration; I'm not missing ANY of the things listed in core curriculum). Teacher says she's one of the smartest kids she's taught in 30 years.

So, K is great, but 1st is looming. AG teacher will only identify, allegedly per state law, if we can come back with external numbers proving 98% or best (not strictly true, but she won't do testing herself until she sees those, so hands are tied, even if it's illegal). So we got them.

We're broke. Postdoc tester through university gave her the WISC-IV, WJIII Ach and WIAT III a few weeks ago. Said DD was very engaged and interested, but refused to take any breaks. Both achievement tests took about 30 minutes (each; WJ was a bit shorter, only about 20 minutes) and the WISC-IV took 45 minutes. I say this because someone told me this was shorter than average.

Maybe I'm being a prideful mother, or maybe I was just totally off base, or maybe it's as simple as I don't understand what I'm looking at. But I'm confused.

The test scores just came back WAY lower than we thought they would.

I agree.

It's hard. You need scores for access to certain programs, but testing at a young age can be disastrous. (I didn't test until I was in my late 20s). Our pediatrician emphatically warned us against testing DD & DS, saying that behavioural issues will get in the way of accuracy.

If you have the right tester who can meet the child's needs (i.e. breaks, reassurance from anxiety, etc) then you might be ok, but it sounds like it wasn't the case for your DD.

I'd put together a portfolio for her and see if that will work for her. My DD10 was tested by the school at the end of grade two, and that's it (she's never done the WISC-IV and we have no FSIQ for her). She's been identified and granted access to the school's GT program because of achievement and developmental history (as well as the testing in grade 2, in which her results ranged from grade 3 to grade 5, with anxiety present during testing.. so is it accurate? Who knows. Who cares - she's in the program). I don't need to know her IQ as long as her needs are being met.

Try a portfolio. You could retest, but I'd wait a few years, maybe?

You have actual helpful answers from others, but: since when?! In my book a jaguar is Panthera onca and a leopard is Panthera pardus. Knowing the differences between these is the kind of thing 6yos do, right?

What's she reading? Have you given her anything like an AR test, or has school? Has school tested her reading level?

How about a bit more info on math? Can she add and subtract multidigit numbers in her head, do fractions, multiply and divide multidigits on paper? If you sat and gave her an out of level math test, with zero help or prompting, how would she do? I think you could use the K-12 tests online (someone else probably has the link).

In your shoes, with these results, which, yes, really don't look that spiky, I'd be really confused. I'd want to see how the child performed right in front of me on a neutral paper and pencil test, but with me watching. Maybe there's an anxiety issue? Dysgraphia? What is she expected to do in K? How much does she write?

Is she shy?

Her K teacher is great, and gives her extension stuff. She does well, but struggles a bit with word problems (she says she gets caught up in the story and wonders what happens next :P but I think it's not as strong for her overall). Teacher assessed her as end of first/beginning of second at the beginning of the year, but admitted that was as far as she was allowed to test. She is currently reading A Midsummer Night's Dream (with help with the language) and The Return of the King, as well as Many Waters (Wrinkle in Time series). Also, a lot of picture books and short chapter books. Kid is a voracious reader But quit reading the first semester because she thought her teacher thought she was a poor reader, and "Kids in Kindergarten don't read books".

Math, she can do fractions and can multiply single digits but not multidigits on paper (haven't tried multidigits, TBH; she's been multiplying numbers since age 3, so I probably could). She does multidigit long division after a five minute discussion a bit ago. She can add and subtract multidigit numbers in her head, but wants to use her fingers...she's VERY unsure of herself in math. If I tell her to sit on her hands, she gets the right answers anyway Before K started, she placed out of Dreambox (through grade 3) and she does 3rd and 4th grade workbooks at home for fun (by herself; I have a toddler and just send her to do her homework and find her doing these instead).

She is not shy, but she needs time to assess situations and will refuse to talk to people who don't stack up. She's...for lack of a better word...weird. Very, very out of the box, prone to non sequiturs, etc. I do not suspect an LD of any kind. Anxiety, quite probably...she has a number of self-confidence and "am I doing this right?" issues. She's been known to completely hide herself because she doesn't like to be different.

So she's reading RotK solo, no help, and getting through and understanding it? I doubt my MG 3rd grader would do that. (I mean, maybe, but Tolkien is dense, and also rather dry.) She certainly wouldn't read Shakespeare. Your DD normally chooses to read at that level?

She does 4th grade math workbooks with little/no instruction?

It does seem that something must be quite off with the testing, then. It's just odd that we don't see at least an occasional peak, though there are a few 99s in there.

She's understanding enough to keep reading it. My daughter chooses to read all over the place. She reads picture books, dense chapter books...truly all over the place. But when she reads the dense chapter books, I can ask her questions. The tester's explanation was that her memory is really good. But, that, too, doesn't match the kid I know! If I had to call it going into the test, I would say she would bomb anything related to memory, beast any reading section, and expected her to be way higher on block design, based on interest and what I've seen her do. Test showed the exact opposite of all of this.

So, I'm really confused. I don't know if I've just completely misunderstood my kid, or if I should just assume the test is way off. But this is more like it seems that I got a different child's scores than "it's a little off". The kid presents very much as a highly gifted kid. Interested, engaged, constantly sucking things in and spitting them out in exciting new ways. But HATES to be different, and therefore has a lot of anxiety issues, including refusing to work at her level at school so that she doesn't have to work by herself all the time. Unless I'm just really far off about her.

Given what you've stated, I would really recommend a private neuropsychologist do the next round of WISC testing... it can only be administered once a year, so perhaps you can save up towards it. I doubt you are going to get the answers you seek without seeing a highly trained professional like a neuropsych or a developmental ped who has experience with gifted kids and 2e kids.

Have you asked her about the testing experience? How experienced was the tester?

I have to agree that another test seems in order. I get how frustrating that is.

I don't think any kindergartener can read and progress through a book like RotK with understanding without being at least MG. (Likely more than that!) I mean, again, if she is really reading it-- more than a few pages here and there. (My daughter read a bit of Little Women in grade 2, but probably spent less than a hour with it in total, so I wouldn't say she's read it, YK? She was sort of toying with it, in part because she wanted to read an adult book.) I am not aware of a child in my DD's magnet gifted school class (99th% IQ required for admission) whose reading skills appear that advanced (meaning that I don't see a child who looks like he/she was reading Tolkien in K). A common level of proficiency for these children is Harry Potter and other high-level children's fantasy in 2nd grade, perhaps 1st grade for a few.