Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment WJ-III achievement scores and DYS - questions

Hello,

My son (5), who we've suspected to be highly gifted for a while now, will start K this fall. In order to overcome my own imposter syndrome and get some better data about his current knowledge to help with school advocacy, we had our first testing done this week. We opted for something that wouldn't be too tiring but would give a sense of where he is. He was given the Woodcock-Johnson III Normative Update Test of Achievement, Form A. The tester indicated that there were a couple of different versions and the one he was given was the shortest. His scores look like they would be DYS qualifying, but I'm not sure if this particular test is accepted or if he would need one of the longer versions. Here are his standard scores (now edited for privacy):

Brief Achievement
Brief Reading
Academic Knowledge

Subtests:
Letter-Word recognition
Spelling
Passage Comprehension
Applied Problems
Academic knowledge

All are listed as >99.9 percentile except for academic knowledge (97th) and passage comprehension (99.6).

My questions are:

1) I see from the DYS qualification criteria that he would need 2/3 of "broad reading, broad math, broad achievement" to qualify with the Woodcock-Johnson III (ach). Since our score are called "brief", I assume these results can't be used?

2) Does anyone know how well this briefer form correlates with the longer version? Am I right to think that he would be quite likely to qualify for DYS if we had him take an accepted test? I am at a bit of a loss about how to approach schooling for him and think we could really benefit from an educational consultant.

Thanks in advance!

1. Yes, these scores cannot be used for DYS. He would need additional subtests (reading fluency, writing samples, writing fluency, calculations, math fluency) administered to obtain qualifying scores for DYS.
2. The brief scores generally track the broad scores reasonably well, but keep in mind that there can be wide variability for scores, even in the same cluster, once you reach the upper extreme, and especially for a very young learner. In his case, the difference between Brief Reading and Broad Reading is a silent reading fluency measure. His decoding skills score much higher than his comprehension skills, which suggests that his fluency would be on the higher end of his own range as well. I wouldn't go so far as to say that he would be quite likely to qualify for DYS on broad achievement measures, as he doesn't have a written expression measure (spelling is a mechanical skill, which may or may not predict his ability to generate complex written language). Fluency (writing speed) is also a factor. The third area, mathematics, is strong in reasoning, but would need to also be strong in calculation skills and, again, fluency.

I don't doubt that he is very bright, but the nature of the broad scores, which are each composed of one mechanical, one reasoning, and one fluency measure, means that a single subtest score isn't always enough to say the broad score will be in that same range.

Thank you so much for this information, aeh! Your response makes me pretty sure he would do very well with the full measure math (he's much stronger in calculations and fluency than the types of questions that were included in the short version - I was actually surprised he did so well, given how little exposure he's had to the types of questions that were asked).

I have a couple of questions:

Would writing fluency be dependent on handwriting skills? This is not his strong point, although I think his handwriting is pretty good for a 5 year old. He would do fine if it's not timed, I think (he does write down complex sentences sometimes, but it's laborious for him and he doesn't necessarily position the words on the page properly). And does vocabulary factor in? We do have a different measure of that, and it was very strong.

Just out of curiosity, how is silent reading fluency measured? The only fluency measures I'm familiar with involve timing a child who is reading out loud. He does well in reading aloud fluency, but I have no idea about silent fluency.

Thanks again for your response!

Writing and math fluency are both all about handwriting speed, and are absolutely timed.

Silent reading fluency is measured with a series of sentences, each of which he reads, and then responds to by circling a yes or no. So it involves a little bit of motor speed too (though not as much as math or writing), as well as a relatively simple comprehension.