Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Odd Testing Question-Retest or Not?

Thanks everyone for the replies. We live in southern Ohio and do not have a gifted school or even magnet schools in our city. There are two gifted school about an hour away, but with the current gas prices, it seems insane to drive two hours everyday for schooling. When we moved to Ohio, we chose our current school district because it was touted as being one of the best in the state. They are impressive for average students, but they seem to think that all of their kids are gifted. Sigh.

As for achievement tests... I thought that our son was given out-of-level testing during the acceleration testing. They followed the Iowa Acceleration Scale and did tons of testing in the weeks before xmas break. The meeting with the acceleration committee is a bit of a blur since that was the first time that we saw any of their data and it was a mental overload to decipher it all. But I remember them saying that he was testing two to three grades above in most subjects. And I remember the gifted teacher saying that for science he scored at the 10th grade level. But when I called last week to ask for copies of any out of level testing, I was informed by the gifted teacher that it wasn't done. So I'm very confused.

Do any of you have any recommendations for specific achievement tests and how expensive are they?

As for home schooling, I'm not sure that I could deal with having this high intensity, high energy kid at home all day!! (how do I put a smiley face in here??) The hours when he is away at school are the hours that I recharge my battery. But if I feel he is really floundering in school, then I may consider it. He would not choose home schooling though. He is an only child who lives for the social interaction at school. He really sees school as one long play date! I worry that the kids think he is weird and call him crazy at school, although he is doing much, much better in third grade than in second. It seems to be a better social fit, as well as an academic fit. But sometime they treat him as a pesky little brother I think. And there have been a few instances of bullying on the playground. (first and second graders are in one area and third-sixth are in another... so he is the smallest fish in the big pond!)

All of these issues are so hard to figure out as a parent!! You want your child to be happy and love school. You want their mind to be able to race as fast as their thoughts can take them. And you want them to have friends.. to feel that they are not so very alone in the world. My son recently read a Wrinkle in Time and was amazed by the character Charles. He wondered if other kids called him crazy too. It just breaks your heart as a parent.

ebeth

ebeth, I just sent you a private message...

I just wanted to mention that you have a right to view all your son's educational records under FERPA. Maybe then you will be able to find out what tests they used.

Oh I can totally relate to your post. My DS7 is a definite squirmy worm and is not the perfect student in the classroom. He is willing to make his own form of entertainment if he is not engaged at school. His teacher admitted she can't even reach him academically in the classroom, but loves to focus on his fidgety issues. Again - he'll sit still for hours for the right book or lego project. He's definitely not one of the top behavioral problems in the class by any means. I do tend to agree that he's not the ideal candidate for radical acceleration in a regular classroom although that is what he desperately needs.

Anyway - we are looking at homeschooling for fall. Our public school is very poorly equipped to deal with kids that don't fit a certain mold. GT kids at our school who are teacher pleasers seem to fare at least somewhat better. And we're another family that never thought we'd be homeschoolers. We're not Christian or conservative. You may just put feelers out in your area to see what kind of outlets and organizations are available for homeschoolers.

Cathy A,
I haven't decided whether I am confused, they are disorganized or forgetful, or if they just really don't want to deal with me. Maybe I'm pulling an Oliver Stone here, but they seemed to throw an avalanche of details from the WISC-IV at us and never really mention any assessment tests at the acceleration meeting. They simply said that his FSIQ was a 143 which agreed with the CogAt from the year before (which at 140 was also a hard ceiling). It was the school psychologist who brought up the science sub test score at the end of the meeting. DH and I were so new to the process that we didn't stop to think during the meeting to ask additional questions. I have a feeling that they didn't show us the out-of-level test scores for fear that we might have wanted radical acceleration of more than one grade.

I hope they didn't use an on-level achievement test b/c that won't tell you much. Perhaps if you ask for the results of ANY achievement test (not just out of level) you'll get a different answer. I don't think the WJIII or WIAT has a separate science component.

I just got an email from DH saying that our school systems curriculum director has agreed to meet with him this week to discuss options for our DS7(nearly 8). I would love any input or suggestions from those of you who have fought this battle before. We don't know quite what to ask for. (besides the impossible of having a fast paced curriculum in a classroom of his gifted peers!) For those of you who suggest radical acceleration in one or two subject fields (which I am leaning towards), do you have any problems with your child (or the teacher) "remembering" to send him/her up to a different class at the appropriate time. When our DS7 was transitioning to third grade, he had a week or so of subject acceleration in order to ease him into it. About half the time the teacher (or my son) forgot to leave his classroom and go up a grade for an hour or so. Is this a common problem or does it become routine after a while? Also what happens when there is a jump from the elementary school to a middle school class? (say when he would be in sixth grade for most of the day but move up to seventh for a math or science class?)

Is he responsible enough to remember that he has "different" math or reading or whatever?

I was subject accelerated when I was in school, and when the teacher said, "get out your reading," I just got up and left.

I think the move to middle school is a potential problem area. You probably will want to talk about the transitions with the middle school well before he gets there (6+ months ahead of time), but I wouldn't worry too much about it yet. Many, MANY things can happen between now and then, and there's no point in giving the school a reason to say no to the subject acceleration if they haven't already thought of it themselves!

But I'm far from an advocacy expert, so take this with a grain of salt!