Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment 1st grade, Naglieri and SAGES-2

Hi everyone

I'm the mom of three girls. At our school they give the Naglieri in 1st grade and for the first two kids, that's the only criteria used for the GT program (and since our district moves the kids to a completely separate school, most parents don't participate.) My first DD didn't score gifted, and promptly came home the day of the test with strep.

My second DD came home with a raw score of 132 and the 98th percentile. The teacher didn't give me the results until after the program deadline, despite me asking several times. What I did learn with her, though, is MENSA accepts raw scores of 130 and above for membership.

Friday DD #3 brought her results home. Percentile only (99th) and a letter saying she will be tested further, which is a change from the other two. So I talked to the district coordinator today to 1) get the raw score (143), 2) start the MENSA ball rolling and 3) find out what test is next.

They are now using the SAGES-2 test to determine who is invited into the program. He said 200 1st graders will be tested for 25 spots.

My question is this - what is SAGES-2? Is it another IQ test like the Naglieri? Achievement? Blend? Is there a general idea as to what a "good" score is? What should I expect?

I am just trying to figure out what sort of advocacy I need to be prepared to do for all my girls. There are no additional programs in the schools for GT kids. Knowledge is power.

Any advice along this new trail for me is much appreciated.

Thanks!

Mare

No experience but I was curious so I looked on Hoagies site:

http://www.prufrock.com/productdetails.cfm?PC=128

It is three subtests, math, language and reasoning....

Sounds like you should retest DD1 since she was sick. Have they changed the program requirements after the first two DDs or is this just the first time you've gotten this far due to the above circumstances? Again just curious.

Thanks for the link. I will look at it later tonight.

They wouldn't retest DD1 - she's in middle school now and doing well. The middle school doesn't even have honors classes. The principal doesn't believe in them.

They did change the evaluation requirements. It used to be just the Naglieri and then teacher recommendation and a lottery. Now they are using the SAGES-2 for further requirements. DD2 would've done this if the protocol was the same.

Thanks for your help.

My son, a 5th grader scored like this

in Comparison to the national Normal percentile
Math/Science 99
lang/Arts 98
reasoning 99

in comparison to the National Gifted percentile
99 95 96, respectively. They did the test last March and mailed me the result May 12, copy furnished the school principal. You should be able to gather a lot of info regarding thsi test online, but to be honest I never heard of it until such time that the teacher mentioned recommending him to participate. I am not a big fan of "separation", but still estatic when I heard....

I'm not sure if this will help, but I'd thought I'd share my six-year old daughters experience. The SAGES II was the initial step to her qualifying for her gifted program. From my girl's explanation of it to me, it is a written, test with strange and "funny" questions. After that, she had a "full team" evaluation with a psych and ed. diagnostician who administered the Stanford Binet (5th) and Woodcock Johnson III. She did significantly better on the reasoning/math portions of these two tests than she did on the SAGES test, and averaged about the same in verbal/reading. Hope this helps you in some small way!