Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Tests to Help with Acceleration Advocacy

It probably depends on your district, but I suspect that you would not get very far with just IQ scores on a 1st grader. In my experience, the school may look at your outside scores, but will likely proceed only after their own testing. These are typically end-of-grade subject tests for one or more years up as well as some kind of ability testing. If you do have outside achievement testing, they will likely trust a test adminstrated uniformly (such as Explore, ACT, SAT) more than an individually administered test (such as Woodcock Johnson, Wechsler) especially by an unknown adminstrator.

Writing ability can be a deal-breaker in some districts as well. Personally, I did not feel comfortable trying to accelerate my DS until he was 7 and in second grade and I was confident that he would be able to keep up with the writing required by 3rd/4th grade math.

Percy, I'm interested in finding out what the writing intervention is as well! I will pm you!

Thank you all!

As for testing....he was also assessed by school on CoGat and ITBS. But just grade level ITBS. I like the suggestion to ask for end of year testing a grade up and beyond if warranted to see where his academic level really lies.

As for wJ-iii, our tester noted that his CTOPP showed extremely high scores in areas expected to be depressed based in WJ (like fluency)..showing pen and pencil indeed played a role in underachievement, but couldn't be the whole story.

I am listening to all the cautions. He is above grade in writing and spelling but it is definitely his weakness. He has been in OT for the year and making amazing progress.... But speed is still the issue and his struggles manifest in timed tests as well.

I will meet with school and ask for assessments and policies on ssa/grade acceleration. I'd feel best if we explored ssa first as a bridge. I think... I'm not sure what the best path is but do know we need to start traveling down a different path