Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment [Post removed]

Do you have other K options?

The thing about achievement test results is that they are dependent on learned knowledge, and you're testing a very young child who's already in Junior K and it sounds like she's been exposed to some academics. A lot of the sample group of same-age kids that the achievement test is normed against likely haven't had the same level of exposure to concepts like early reading etc, so what you *might* find (or might not!) is that if she retests in a few years, when other kids are reading etc that where she falls relative to other children's scores (percentile) might dip a little bit, simply because the other kids have started to catch up with early academics.

OTOH, the WPPSI is an ability test, and less likely to be influenced by early exposure to academics, so *if* the score you had was the score she's really at (which might not be, as ash mentioned, scores aren't terribly reliable at her age and she's showing a lot of variation in subtest)... but... *if* they were an accurate snapshot of her abilities, then you'd probably see the scores land her in the same IQ percentiles when tested later on.


Since you're not in the US, I can't really help with much advice, but if you *were* in the US one thing I'd advise is that it's easier (usually) to argue for acceleration based on achievement than on IQ scores, for two reasons - teachers/etc are very skeptical of early IQ scores simply because they aren't thought to be reliable when children are so young, plus teachers in general (here, just my experience), put a lot more weight into what they see a child actually doing in terms of academics. So for us, at least, it's been easier to advocate using achievement scores rather than IQ, and I've also had friends (parents) who've been able to bypass IQ cut-offs by showing examples of achievement scores as well as examples of their child's work.

That said, I would not be so terribly eager to advance my very young child in school - unless she was absolutely begging for it. My kids are older, and honestly, no matter what grade level they've been allowed to work at, school has for the most part put boundaries on their lives because of the amount of their free time it consumes, and it never seems like it's quite "enough" (even for my child who is not technically "gifted" according to test #s. If there is one thing I wish I could do for my kids, I wish I could give them back more of their preschool years (even as older people lol!)... because that was the one time in their lives where they truly were able to let their minds just be anywhere at anytime. Even though they might not have been learning reading/writing/arithmetic in preschool, the freedom to just *think* really fostered a ton of learning!

Do you have any alternatives to repeating JK next year? Other types of school options other than acceleration?

Sending you good wishes!

polarbear

In response to some of the questions above:
- We are in Canada
- My DD can read. She's currently reading Level 8 PM Benchmark books at school, which is mid-Grade 1.

Educational options:
1) Continue in current pre-school where she can do SK next year. Her pre-school only goes up to SK, therefore, this option just delays the problem and still requires advocating for acceleration if I want her to continue at her current pace if she goes back to public school after.
2) Register her for the public school for September, but she will have to do JK unless I can successfully ask for a grade skip.

Just noticed your question about more subtests:

She did receive all the possible subtests for a three-year-old. If she had been tested a month later, at four years old, testing would have included the Fluid Reasoning and Processing Speed clusters. In my experience, a cognitively bright young four-year-old might benefit from including the Fluid Reasoning cluster, as that is where advanced abstract thinking and problem solving are most likely to be documented, but might be at a disadvantage when including the Processing Speed cluster, as fine motor development is so variable at this age. Net change in FSIQ--a wash.

I understand your dilemma, but if she is reading mid grade 1 books as a preschooler, even starting SK at the public school for next year isn't really going to do much to solve the academic mismatch. It sounds as if the current school does fairly well at meeting her needs, so if you can at all afford it, I'd leave her where she is for another year. Believe me, sometimes just postponing the problem for a year must be good enough!
It certainly gives her time to develop, gives you time to get to know her better, maybe have another round of testing (though the wppsi is of course out for two years) and may help you see a lot clearer.
I have seen testing go so many ways, from testing our two year old for color blindness, to an ASD eval, to IQ tests almost three standard deviations aoart, it's such a crapshoot...if there is an acceptable placement for SK within your reach, just take it, and then worry about what to do about first grade.

In two years, she will be old enough for the WISC-V, anyway. But if you feel strongly that testing before then will be valuable, there's always the SBV.

I would agree with taking it year by year. The available programming changes, too.

Fobstar, I'm sending you a PM.

I would not worry about rushing Things to much at your daughter's age. We did not do an evaluation until dd was 7 at her schools insistance, the scores are unstable at 3/4 years old and you don't need to do a ton of educational planning anyway. In addition, you really don't know what your daughter will need academically yet. Some very gifted children do not perform as well academically and some high average children perform exceptionally well. My experience has been that the WPPSI scores a bit higher than the WISC but it does depend on the child to some extent.