Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Should we seek out a gifted program?

Hello everyone! Newbies to this forum but so glad I found it We just got our 5th grade daughter's benchmark scores back from her school and are wondering if we should seek out a gifted program for her. When we looked at some of her other testing scores from previous we noticed that she is consistently placing in the upper percentiles.

1st Grade GMRT BR:
-Raw score: 68
-Stanine: 7
-GE: 2.8

2nd Grade GMRT Level 2:
-Raw Score: 113
-Stanine: 7
-GE: 4.1

3rd Grade GMRT 3:
-Raw Score: 84
-Stanine: 8
-PR: 90

4th Grade:
-Benchmark Reading: 41/41 term 1 and 38/41 term 2
-Benchmark Math: 29/31 and 46/48
-DIBELS ORF: 147

5th Grade:
-Maze Assessment: 46
-DIBELS ORF: 209

Our school does not have a gifted program so she has never been tested for one. Do you think we should seek a program outside of her school for her to join? Thanks so much!!

In terms of ability, school gifted programs may be geared toward the top two percent, which is IQ 130+, 98th+ percentiles, and some may be inclusive of high achievement, with test scores in the 95th percentile or higher. If your school doesn't have a GT program, what you seek depends on what your child seems to need that isn't being met by the school.

I'm not sure we have enough information. Do you see achievement scores in the high 90s on broader, nationally normed standardized tests? I'm not familiar the achievement tests you shared, but the stanines of 7 and 8 are not typically flagged for gifted extension (usually it's stanine 9, the 96th percentile or higher), but would be considered above average. Meeting benchmarks doesn't tell us if the child is above grade-level, if they don't assess above level. Cognitive ability testing would help you see if the child's ability doesn't seem to be matching their achievement, if you were seeking extension from the school.

Here's some helpful info on testing terminology, such as stanines and percentiles:
https://specialedonthebellcurve.wor...centiles-stanines-grade-equivalents-etc/

And here is some information on what grade level equivalent means:
http://everyday-learning.org/grade-equivalent-score-fallacy/

Welcome!

In addition to high IQ scores and/or high achievement scores, gifted kids often have characteristics or traits in common. Parents may notice these as early milestones. Some links that may be of interest:
- Characteristics of intellectually advanced young people
- Parenting Gifted Preschoolers
- NAGC's list borrowed from the book A Parent's Guide to Gifted Children
- Characteristics and Behaviors of the Gifted
- Characteristics checklist for gifted children
-Tips for Parents: Helping Parents Understand Their Profoundly Gifted Children
- Profiles of the gifted and talented which lists 6 different types, categorized by personality/temperament and achievement
- Bertie Kingore, Ph.D.: High Achieving, Gifted Learner, Creative Thinker? (hat tip to sanne)
- A common trait in gifted children, often listed amongst identifying characteristics, is alternately described as: "advanced moral reasoning", "well developed sense of justice", "moral sensitivity", "advanced ability to think about such abstract ideas as justice and fairness", "empathy", "compassion". Links to lists of gifted characteristics include several articles on the Davidson Database here and here, SENG (Silverman), SENG (Lovecky).
- ages at which gifted children may reach developmental milestones

Gifted programs vary widely. Many may teach in lock-step, one year advanced. Others may teach the grade-level curriculum but demand more written output.

Posts on the topic of school selection and the right "fit" include:
- School consultant for elementary aged child
- What kids don't learn
- Roundup of Tamara Fisher blog posts
- Article about poor school fit (includes findings by Miraca Gross)
- roundup of links on school selection and "educational fit"
- roundup of discussion threads on full-grade acceleration (pro and con)
- advanced curriculum with same-aged intellectual peers
- Hoagies' Gifted Education Page - Private Schools and the Profoundly Gifted
- observations or signs that a child is not appropriately challenged... advocacy may be needed and may be overdue
- Underachievement: Hoagies list, Jim DeLisle article, Jim DeLisle book.

Hopefully, some ideas in these posts will help your family determine whether your child is being appropriately challenged and is provided the opportunity to work with intellectual peers.

Actually, her reading scores are better described as high average in grades 1, 2, and 4. (The 7th stanine is just outside of the average range, and the grade 4 result is actually inside the average range.) They were above the 90th %ile in grades 3 and 5, with the last score a fair amount above the 90th %ile in both reading fluency and comprehension.

Not denying that she is a strong reader now--just clarifying that she's made a bit of a leap in recent years, rather than being an exceptional reader all along. Also, it appears to have taken her a year to go from being a strong decoder to reading at a level of fluency comparable to her decoding skills. (Hence the dip from decoding scores on the Gates in grade 3, to the fluency scores in grade 4.) I should also note that, once one attains adult fluency levels, there is not much space at the top of the fluency norms to distinguish good readers from exceptional readers. To give you a sense of when these ceiling effects kick in, consider that average adult readers have an oral reading fluency of about 150 wcpm. And the average sixth grader has already just about met that benchmark. Beyond that, higher reading fluency does not always parallel increasing reading skill, as some excellent readers actually read aloud more slowly than some merely good readers, as they may slow down to read with expression, while good decoders without as strong of comprehension skills may rush through rote reading with less sense of the meaning.

The reading assessments literally consist of one to three minute reading samples, and don't really go deep. They are designed to screen for children with reading challenges, not really to distinguish the subtleties of high-achieving students with higher-level skills.

If considering supplementation with a significant cost in time and/or energy to the family, I would probably want more substantive data than the progress monitoring tools you have before making that kind of investment.