Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment New to this - ACH compared to IQ?

Hello there,

I'm brand new to all of this and looking for answers so am thrilled to have stumbled across this sight. My 6 year old son was given the WJ III ACH at school last week and we were frankly shocked by the results and trying to figure out what it means. I have a few questions. His Broad Math score was 161 but the individual tests came in at 151(Calc) 131(Fluency) and 149(Applied problems). How does that work and which score is most relevant? Broad Reading score was 148, what does the large discrepency between these mean? Last question: We haven't had an IQ test done and hadn't planned on it but these numbers are making me think it might be a good idea to really get a handle on his ability. The school doesn't see a need though. Can I assume from these scores that he is a highly gifted child and will have very different academic needs? Do IQ results generally come in below or above achievement results and are they usually closer to the Broad Math or Broad Reading? I would like to add that while we knew our son was bright, he has never done anything remarkable. He learned to read early but not exceptionally early (not fluently until after 5) He has recently shown an ability to add double and triple digit numbers in his head but often gets it wrong when he's calculating. Other than that, just a normal kid in every way. Any input, interpretation, insight etc. would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance

Yes, definitely get an IQ test if you haven't already and if he qualifies, apply to the DYS program. It's great! (And it's free!)

Those are wonderful scores. DS6 scored 160 in Broad Math with Applied Math score of 169 last year (age 5:3). He had a Davidson qualifying PIQ score. I think it's very likely that your son will score very high on the IQ test (99.8-99.9%) or at least some portion of it and he may be a good Davidson candidate. Definitely have the IQ testing done.

Would you mind sharing his reading subtest scores? For some reason the Broad Reading score at the age of 5 is off and doesn't seem to make too much sense. It would be nice to see what happens at the age of 6.

Thanks for your input. It does mention compuscore - it says Compuscore for the WJ III, Version 2.0 and above the sub test results it says Form B. The Passage Comprehension was 132, Letter-Word Identification 143 and Reading Fluency 145.

I think I have a basic understanding as to why the broad scores are higher than the individual scores but it seems so extreme. Another question - the AE doesn't always convert to the same SS which doesn't make sense to me. For example, the Applied Problems AE is 10-2 which gives a SS of 149 but the Picture Vocabulary has an AE of 10-0 but the SS is only 125. How does that work?

His second highest individual score after the calculation of 151 was Spelling at 150. Any insight on this? Lowest score was Story Recall at 114

Thanks for the link to the Davidson sight. I'm from Canada so it looks like he wouldn't be eligible. Any fellow Canucks out there who know of a Canadian organization? I'm in BC.

Thx.

Are you sure they didn't test my child instead of yours? Their profiles would be quite similar LOL. He took the updated WJ-III version but anyway his reading scores were very similar 131/142/145 but the Broad Reading at that age comes up with score 132. Seriously could they fix it for 5 year olds? I sometimes wonder if they have a software/database bug there.

Talking about similar profiles, my son's 2nd highest score after applied math was spelling. His lowest score (and highest grade equivalent) was story recall.

As for scores and AE, the score shows rarity of the test results. For example it's very rare to have a kid in K solving applied levels as an AVERAGE 4th grader but it's not that unusual to have K recalling a story as an average 5th grader. KWIM?

What's your son's school situation?