Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Newbie- WJ3 achievement scores, meaning?

Thanks, Chris. I've just BTDT!

Since someone started this thread... what does it mean if the assessor just keeps sticking in 150+ - is there really a ceiling on an achievement test or are there versions and we should have had one for older kids?

Ok, the tester finally emailed me back (she was out of town). I'm really confused by her email, so I'll just cut and paste it, hopefully you guys can tell me what to tell her. I'm not sure if I'm not wording it correctly or if she's never had this request before. I think she got certified to help homeschoolers for reporting, this isn't her "day job" so to speak, but the price was very reasonable and she was really nice and really willing to work with me to get what we needed out of the testing.



Thanks again for everyone's help!
Kimberly

Thank you Dottie!

You know, looking at the report she gave me it says:

Norms based on grade 1.9

Is that what we're talking about? I remember her saying she had to have a grade equivalent to put him in because the software required it, and I had told her end of 1st grade. But, it gets complicated because technically he would have just been finishing K. I pulled him from school 3 months before the end and then "promoted" him to 1st for our homeschool. We only did school for 2 months before we went on break for the summer, now we've started back and he's doing 2nd grade curriculum. Would it be dishonest to ask her to norm based on end of K to get him closer to his age peers? He did have exposure to the 1st grade math, he finished the whole Singapore 1a/b in 2 months so really it's all things he was teaching himself anyways and then the reading is what he's done all on his own.

Somehow I see a full-scale test in our future, lol.

Ok, now I know exactly what to point her to change, the "norms based on ___" section.

I was wondering whether a full scale work-up for DYS and the local public GT school (it has a 145 cut off as well) was warranted. This test was an inexpensive compromise between paying a few hundred dollars "just to see" and continuing to have no idea what to do.

The GE for comprehension is right where I thought he was, his math seems a bit lower than I expected, but the SS scores really surprised me and made me questions whether I was not just crazy to even consider DYS, but crazy to have fought the school so hard about him being gifted at all.

And to be honest, I get a bit obsessive about things and I want to know the exact answer, not something approximating it, lol.

If she needs a grade for her software, what GE corresponds to your son's age? She could use that to generate the right numbers, I think.

She was finally able to get me the re-normed report, so I thought I'd post the new scores. It looks much better age normed! Thank you guys so much for pointing that out to me, my confidence was really shaken when the SS scores looked low. One thing that I didn't expect though was the RPI to change too- I thought it was his percentage right compared to the norm, if he missed some how can it be 100?

Cluster/Test / RPI / PR / SS (68% Band) /

Academic Skills / 100/90 / >99.9 / 149 (147-151)/

Academic Knowledge / 99/90 / 97 / 127 (122-133)

Form A of the following achievement tests was administered:

Letter-Word ID / 100/90 / >99.9 / 149 (147-151)

Calculation / 100/90 / 96 / 127 (121-133)

Spelling / 100/90 / 99.5 / 139 (135-143)

Passage Comp. / 100/90 / 99.6 / 139 (136-143)

Applied Problems / 100/90 / 97 / 127 (122-133)

Academic Knowledge / 99/90 / 97 / 127 (122-133)

Punctuation & Capitals / 99/90 / 94 / 123 (115-131)

I am glad you got the numbers re-normed. I bet they make much more sense now. Those are very nice strong numbers.

Having a WJ holy crap minute. now i understand they show the grade level equivalent but in a higher socio economic area would a lot of kids be above grade level.... last year we were 2-4 grade levels up depending on the area. now we are 3 - 5 grade levels up. does anyone know if this is a typical bump from having gone to school. is this likely to keep happening at this rate. i'm a little FREAKED out because we thought we could get away with public. but if she's 6.5 and writing like a 7th grader what are we going to do in 3 years when her she know more than i do.

Uh. Seriously, am I running for denial or do you think WJs overstate the issue. I'm not in panic mode but... my head is a little spinning about how long term this plays out.

If this post sounds like a moment in your life from a year or years ago... talk to me... this is nuts.

DS7's writing scores showed him as writing like a 17+yo at age 5y9m. I'm with Dottie. WJ3 is not exactly valid as a writing assessment. (Thank GOODNESS! )