Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Recommend an achievement test for my DS

It was from the school's tester, so it's not exactly a complete report... (Well, it's complete score-wise, but not exactly a great explanation of what I'm looking at and where it came from, just to be clear there. Didn't want to confuse anyone there.)

The test was in March 2007. It doesn't say NU anywhere that I can see, but I'm not sure where to be looking...

It just says "Norms based on age 5-9" and "Compuscore Version 1.1b." Does that mean anything to you?

If it's not an NU, what does that change?

So the specific scores aren't hepful in this case, right? I'd be happy to share them here if they are, but I won't if they aren't.

When my tester did not use the NU, DS6 scores were much higher in almost every area. She actually had to e-mail a friend to give her the NU scores for my DS's test since she hadn't gotten the updates. I must have a paper copy somewhere--just need to remember where I put it.

Wow. I guess we're lucky they were still on 1.1b, huh? I never thought of DS7 skirting by on the achievement scores he got (DYS level on 3 of the 4 composites, and missed #4 by 1 point), but maybe he was! Imposter syndrome strikes again...

Letter-Word 153
Passage Comprehension 145
Reading Fluency 144

Broad Reading 154

Thanks, Dottie. Don't know that I can help the imposter syndrome, but I appreciate your saying it anyway!

DS6 took WJ-III at 5.3 (K at that time) and he too ended up with weird Broad Reading Score. It was weird enough for us to e-mail the psychologist about it even before Dottie mentioned the same thing

He wasn't given one of the written tests so he was lucking and official total achievement score. His fluency subtests were lower than the others. He had brief achievement a fluency scores.

Kriston, no impostor syndrome Your son so belongs there. Some days I keep thinking that we were really lucky DS6 cleared the 150 requirement for WPPSI. What was difference between getting in and not? 2 or 3 questions? Definitely not much.

There is a difference between the new and old numbers. I remember comparing DS6 numbers to crisc's son's before her son's test was renormed. It was a huge point drop but if you look at it as %, the difference was tiny. KWIM?

I hear you. I'll try to put the imposter syndrome back in the box and on the shelf...

Shelve it, Kriston.

Ds-then-5 took the WIAT, so I find the WJ talk interesting! I really don't know anything about the various tests.

I can say that on the WIAT, we didn't get a "language composite" score -- our tester said that since 5yos weren't expected to be reading, they didn't typically give them the Reading Comprehension subtest. Ds did take it (I'm guessing she did it out-of-level, just to see?) and scored well, but he didn't get a percentile rank or a standard score -- just the raw score, age equivalent and GE. I was disappointed. Anyway, we just have a Mathematics Composite, no Language composite. Something to keep in mind for those with big young readers -- I'm now realizing that had our tester not been flexible, he may not have been able to take the Reading Comprehension test at all.

I didn't realize how much the subtests changed with age ... learn something new every day!

I found our broad scores in an old post:

Broad Math: old way was 182 (>99%) and new way was 157 (>99%).
Broad Written Language: old way was 150 (>99%) and new was 127 (96%).
Broad Reading: old way had no score and new way was 125 (95%) despite all the composite scores >128.

I know that his calculation score on the old version was really high and came down to 147 (>99%) with the NU norms.

So what does this mean?? Nothing. We still had DYS qualifying scores in broad math with the NU norms.

I think as DS6 gets old I will be much more interested in out of level testing opportunities. The WJ-III wasn't really helpful to us in learning about DS6's strengths and weaknesses. We knew that he could read, write, and do math better than the average 5 year and 1 month old.

Okay, let me start by saying that I am lost on half of the testing info in this thread. But, I do have a couple questions. Mia mentioned there isn't a language composite score for the WIAT for a 5yo. So my son is going to be taking the WIAT and SB5 in a couple months (at 4yrs 8 mo). I know it is early but we need to get some answers and support for schooling. So he is reading amazingly...and I wonder to myself how they could test his achievement and level if they didn't look at reading. I guess I don't know much about either test (although I did look into them a little bit on Hoagies). He has never taken tests but other than being timed he is pretty much up for whatever. I know that neither of those tests are timed, so that is good. He likes writing, reading, math, puzzles, all that good stuff. So my question is twofold, will they assess his reading at all, and also will I get an accurate read of his abilities at this age? Make that threefold .. although I am not sure about applying for DYS... are either of those tests acceptable for DYS?