Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Should I have my daughter tested?

Hopefully this is the correct place to post my question.

My daughter just turned 5 in April. I have been working with her off and on for the past year, on what I had originally planned to just be a homeschool pre-k type experience so she would be ready for K this year. I had no clue how fast and how much she would learn in such a short period. She is already reading and comprehending books that fall in about an 18 DRA. She is also doing addition and subtraction up to 20. She has remarkable penmanship as well.

When I went to pre-enrollment for Kindergarten, she came with me and she brought a list of questions she had written and she read them to her teacher. Her teacher seemed shocked and unprepared. I guess I don't know if I should have her tested, and if so what kind of testing and where. I'm not sure what purpose testing would serve. She has always been ahead on things like puzzles and vocabulary since she was very little.

I have a friend who is a child educator. She is insistent that I have her tested. I live in a fairly rural area so I'm not sure what kind of difference knowing her IQ would even make. I only have one school choice anyhow. Also, I've heard teachers say that just because a child reads before Kindergarten, it doesn't mean they are gifted and they will probably be at the same level as their peers by 4th grade anyways.

I don't really know what to think. I think she's certainly intelligent. She's a very fast learner and seems to grasp concepts that are quite beyond what I would think appropriate for her age. I personally have an IQ score of 147. I don't know how or exactly when that was determined (my parents had me tested as a kid and I don't remember much about it).

Socially, she loves people and is very excited for Kindergarten. However, academically I'm not sure it will be challenging enough for her. She's also a super sensitive person emotionally. She's always aware of what others around her are feeling, too.

Do I just go with the flow and chalk it up to she just happens to be a little early with learning some things? Should I have her tested?

Just looking for a little clarity and guidance on this. Thanks in advance!

Nicky

Nicky,

Welcome! I was asking similar questions to family last year, recognizing that DS (now 6) was simply at a different starting point than other kids headed into K were at. I went back and forth -- test, don't test -- for over a year. There are no gifted programs in elementary in our area, so there was no urgent need to test, which may be similar to your situation.

We finally tested this past spring. I will say that, for us, it was helpful in advocating as we planned for the coming year. It gave us -- and the school -- some idea of where he was at, while also allowing us to connect to DYS.

Here are two links i found helpful and are probably part of the reason we waited until after he turned 6:

http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/why_test.htm

http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10112.aspx

Good luck!

Nicky,

Welcome! The links shared by mama2three are great, and I might add one more which deals not specifically with testing but with the dilemma you mentioned as to whether children tend to level out by 3rd or 4th grade.

http://giftedkids.about.com/od/schoolissues/i/even_out_2.htm

NOTE:
the above link now redirects to
https://www.verywellfamily.com/is-my-child-gifted-1449131

I found testing really helpful. It just kind of made it very clear exactly what I was dealing with. i hope your school experience is smooth sailing, but if it is not, test results may help you understand what the potential problems might be more quickly. Of course, it's expensive, so only you can figure out if it's worth it. But the information has been helpful to us in many ways.

If there are requests, demands or services that can only be made/accessed with test data, I'd be inclined to test. Otherwise, I'd likely wait until she were older and test results more likely to be reliable and widely accepted.

I would also tend to assume that given your very high IQ and the things you are seeing (as well as the feedback from your friend) that she is gifted. So you may want to go ahead and start making school decisions and preparations with that thought in mind, even without the testing to back it up just yet.

And welcome!

I'd also suggest working from the assumption that she would test around your level, which is basically at a level that only occurs for one in a thousand people. So, there is a decent chance that none of her teachers have had a kid who operates at that level. The best thing we did was decide that homeschooling was an option for our DS before he started school. School has been working out, luckily our system is fairly forward thinking on gifted issues, but knowing we had a backup plan has been very useful. Look also at any behavior issues that show up at school but not at home as quite possibly related to boredom or feeling talked down to.

It's a two edged sword - when you test you are really biting into the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. On the one hand knowing 'what is going on' is a good thing but on the other hand knowing leads to more worrying - LOL

We elected to test - we are both reasonably intelligent people that blindly (and mistakenly, it turns out) assumed that everyone is intelligent ('what's the big deal?' we thought). When our DD started to show signs of social isolation AND just soaked up arithmetic and simple geometry and algebra like a sponge we read around the issue and all roads led to getting her tested (we tested IQ and achievement). Testing revealed that DD was pretty bright.

Finding out more about just what can happen to a bright girl if she is not given the the right mental stimulation early enough (they mature earlier) gave me more than a few sleepless nights. But, it also allowed us to focus on the issue and address it in an informed way. Overall, I would recommend getting her tested. We used the WISC-IV and the Woodcock-Johnson III but our DD was 7 at the time. Perhaps there are other tests more suitable for younger children.

We are also from a rural area (of a densely populated state) where all of the resources are sucked up by the cities. Our DD ended up as such a big fish in a 'bowl' (cannot call it a pond even) that it was not funny. Luckily, our community really values its school and the school values its kids.

Armed with the test results we were able to get our DD subject acceleration last year and she will be skipping 3rd to start 4th after the summer. Throughout her time at this school to date DD has luckily been really supported by her teachers but I am glad that she has the results. Also, having the results allows DD to participate in G&T enrichment activities outside of school - I am not sure how much this would impact your situation.

I actually found testing less illuminating than I had hoped, but the school used a short test with less information than many. I still think it was definitely a good idea. I will request that my son (5) be tested next year in K.

It seems to me that you already know what testing will say, because your DD is already showing abilities that correspond nicely with your own IQ. For similar reasons, I found that testing for my DD merely confirmed what we already knew.

Any testing would only be of a benefit in proving your DD's abilities to someone else, like a school principal, in order to gain her access to services that better fit her needs. In this case, the school is likely to trust their own process/resources, so outside testing is often a waste of time and money.

My advice would be to start a dialog about your DD's abilities with the school. The determination to test or not would be an outgrowth of that.

As for the notion that all kids level out by 4th grade: that's a red flag. Anyone who says it clearly doesn't understand differences in ability. If you made the strongest kid in school sit on a stool all day, while the rest of the class pumped iron for hours, in a few years he won't look so strong compared to to his peers... unless the kid secretly works out at home on his own. That's pretty much what they do to our children in K-4.

Reminds me of my child getting "in trouble" for working ahead in math... he was/is suppose to sit there for remaining time once he has mastered the work and wait quietly. He was desperate to learn more math do somethign in math more challenging...so now we "work out secretly at home" after being told that again next year that there will no ability grouping in math and they'll provide him differentiation as/if they see fit.