Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Help me understand what this score means

Hi,

I came upon this forum and am hoping some of you experienced moms and dads can advise me on what my daughter's score means.
WPPSI III

VERBAL IQ---> 147 (99.0 percentile)
Information(19)/Vocabulary(17/Comprehension(17)
PERFORMANCE IQ ---> 133 (99.0 percentile)
Block Design(14)/Matrix Reasoning(16)/ Picture Concepts(16)
Processing Speed IQ ---> 122 (93.0 percentile)
Symbol Search(13)/ Coding (15)
Full Scale IQ --> 144

Some background: My daughter is 4 yrs 3 months and is currently in a montessori school. We are in CA where the Kindergarten cut off is Dec 2nd. However many parents/ teachers recommend holding summer/ fall kids back 1 yr to allow them to catch up (whatever that means). I was seriously considering this as my daughter is also very petite and I thought would be overwhelmed by the 6yr olds in the kindergarten who are so much bigger. We also applied to a private Kindergarten where they did a WPSSI evaluation. (Frankly, when they said we have to come in for an evaluation, I thought they will ask my daughter to write her name and identify letters and numbers. When she dissapeared with a 'psychologist' for an hour, I was freaked!). Anyways, we got the scores and honestly I do not know what this means. What kind of a child do we have and what kind of parents do we need to be? We are a bi-lingual family and my daughter is pretty talkative compared to other kids. Please advise.

Our daughter is similar in age, end of Sept birthday and the cut-off for kindergarten is 12/31 except for privates, 9/1.

She is also small, tracking 25th percentile in height and weight but she likes to play with older kids, being in a mixed age Montessori. But I cannot imagine holding her back. She already knows the kindergarten curriculum. And a child will get bored.

From my own experience of acceleration, the size thing really isn't a big issue. But boredom from the classroom material is.

I am not keeping my daughter back.

Ren

My ds has a late June birthday and the cutoff here is Sept 30. I knew people held kids back a year if their birthdays were in Aug or Sept, but I didn't realize some people would keep a child back with a June birthday until I met one the summer before he went. I talked to ds's preschool teacher, who said he was more than ready, and a teacher friend who said I had to send him because he was already reading. So we sent him.

My ds is small for his age (and his birthday is late, so he's also smaller just because he's younger) and he's immature. Kindergarten was no problem, but in first and second grades, he got in trouble for calling out in class (he told me he waited for the teacher to call on him, but he knew the answer and he just had to say it). Academically, he's never had any troubles, but he does have handwrting issues. We didn't have test scores when he started school, but now we do. His scores are in the same ballpark as your dd.

If I had to do it all again, I'd still send him on time. He was teased about his height in 1st and 2nd, but it was never a big deal and now it's stopped (he's still short). Behavior issues (the talking out) are just part of him and he would have had that anyway. His handwriting might have been better if he'd been a year older or maybe not. Knowing what I know now, I would have had an OT eval in 1st grade rather than 2nd. I think if I'd kept him out a year, he would have had more behavior problems because he would have had younger children as peers and he would have been more bored than he already was.


I'm sure you're being the kind of parent you need to be. I don't think her scores are cause for freaking out. Just take a deep breath and enjoy her.

bayareamom, I had the same concerns as you when my daughter was starting K. She is two days before the cut-off in our area and many parents hold fall birthday kids back a year (especially boys), so there were some kids that turned 6 in K before she even turned 5. Plus she is small (5% for height). She got a bit of teasing about how short she is, but she needs to learn how to deal with it, because she will always be short (she is the same size as many of the K'ers now and she's now in second!) That has gotten better. She's also heard comments about how young she is because she is over a year younger than some of the kids in her class. And when they did an activity where they had to write about losing their first tooth, hers began with "I imagine that when I loose my first tooth..." because she is the only kid that hasn't lost a tooth. But these were all minor issues. The biggest issue we had with her in K was that her K teacher refused to give her any more challenging math or reading because her penmanship was not very good (especially compared to kids a year older than her) and she often wrote numbers/letters backwards. So she was stuck reading simple sentences in school while reading MTH books at home and had to learn 1 + 2 = 3 when she was already adding fractions. That was the hardest part in having a young K'er because for her, her ability to write was way behind her intellectual skills. But I'm glad I didn't hold her back, and now we may even have to skip her up a grade next year to find appropriate challenges.
As for the test scores, I'm not familiar with WPPSI III, but they look like high scores to me and I think you will find a lot of valuable information here. The other parents on this board have a lot of great advice and useful information.

Your daughter is gifted. VIQ of 147 is 99.9%, that's quite impressive number. Not only you want to send her to K but you may also want to start researching gifted schools and programs.

Send her to K. As it is she will be bored there even now. If you send her in 2010 it will get only worse. We have Dec 1st cut off as well and from my personal experience people usually hold back boys born in Oct and Nov. Sept is about half and most of the girls are send to school on time even if they are born in Oct and Nov.

She may be small and not as mature as the older children but that's usually problem for boys not girls.

Oh, yes, actually *quite* gifted and probably more than ready for k! I wouldn't hold her back for size. As long as she's not *massively* immature for her age -- and even if she was! -- I'd almost certainly send her to K this year.

Size ... my ds6 is short and will always be short. He's not grade-skipped, but he's still the shortest in his class, and would be one of the shortest in his class even if we'd kept him back a year. Ex-h is 5'7" on a good day and I'm 5'3" ... so really, that's going to be a life-long issue for him -- he's going to be a small child and a small adult. Bummer for him! And teeth ... I love the teeth story, and what a creative way around the issue! Ds6 didn't get his *first* tooth until he was almost 17 months old (!) and is nearing 7 with not a loose tooth in sight ... poor kid got the shallow end of the gene pool on height and tooth loss, I'm afraid.

The physical issues are what they are. But appropriate academic placement is much, much more important, and something that we *can* affect (depending on the school ... ). And you're not even looking at early entrance ... definitely get her off to K this year.

You've got a very, very bright child. Follow her passions and her interests, and give her opportunities to stretch her mind!

Thanks to all of you for your advice. As I read more I have several more questions and would really love your advice.

How gifted is she based on her score? Do the numbers give any sort of a clue to what kind of a learner she is - auditory, visual etc.. Will she be happy in the regular public school K program or should I consider private school or even a gifted program. We can probably do private school if need be but we were considering neighborhood public school so that she has neighborhood playmates. Now I am wondering if she will be bored with just 3 hrs of school. When we went on the tour, it looked the focus is pretty much basics (letter recognition, sounds, numbers etc.). There is GATE programs in our public schools only from 3rd grade which seems to be some additional work for the kids who qualify. As my DH puts it, is it worth 'investing' in a private school or a gifted program now or should we wait until middle school or even high school? Would a 'academic' private school with 'teacher driven + strong basics' education work for her or should we consider private school where the kids are assessed quarterly and are grouped into 3 levels (Grade, Grade +1, Grade +2) for language arts and math. Again, our goal is to make sure that our DD is happy and thrilled about school and learning. There is also gifted school 30 minutes away which seems to focus on 'constructivist' project based curriculum and small class sizes. Would that be better?

She is currently in a mixed age montessori and her teachers say that she is able to deal with older kids quite well, because she is verbal. As far as her petite stature goes, as my DH put it, both mom and dad are 'vertically' challenged, so I guess our DD just has to learn to get used to dealing with it

We had a similiar experience except our daughter was 5 when tested in May of 2007 and we were strongly told to skip K with a 12-1 birthday. And frankly it really hasn't been enough. We didn't understand IQ scores then. We thought it meant she was just "clearly" gt. But it means among many traditionally served gt kids in a classroom she will still stand out. It means, imho, served with traditional gt kids in a pull out if kept with her chronological age grouping - she won't be challenged - imho. There are several options. But the first step is understanding her needs and how what works for other families, what is common for other families, is not going to answer her needs. You may choose not to start K or 1st early - but with scores like that I do strongly believe she cannot be positioned as the older one in the class - she'll be bored - for 12 years really bored. Schools tend to say it evens out at some point. I believe that is because gt kids sit and wait 2+ years for someone to teach them something new.

I did laugh though - I freaked out too when my daughter disappeared. I don't know why I just didn't realize she would be going in by herself with a strange man.

Oh and since you probably can't go around telling all your friends and neighbors - let us here say to you - WOW - HOLY COW - THAT's AWESOME - you have one ubersmart cookie! Sure in here it seems normal but look we had to collect families from all over to make one "school". That is something. Sit back and smile for a moment and think WOW. Then let the panic in :-)

I certainly can't tell you what kind of school would be best for your child.

Our attitude going into school was that Public School should be our default option. We would try that and do what we needed to make it work until the time came that it didn't work anymore. When DS was reading at 4th grade level starting K, I couldn't imagine that that would be very long at all! But he is now 13, in 7th grade and we are still very happy with our neighborhood public school. Think of all the money we saved by not panicking and sending him to a private school!

The bottom line is that so much more of this is about individual kids, teachers, and schools than it is about big categories of public, private, gifted etc. There is not a right answer, just many options to be explored and always opportunities to change course.