Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment now or later???

Life of Fred?
Number Devil?

So frustrating that DD won't nibble on the cooking math...what a stinker, yes?

Which leads to the thought that the more you care the more careful you have to be about allowing her to get a positive reinforcer from the thrill of watching mom's eyes bug out.

What about having a money collection? Nothing like a big bucket of coins to play with to make a person wonder about math. Yeah, I wash them first. My dad used to empty out his pockets at the end of the day into a big plastic bucket and my brothers and I were fasinated with it.

Grinity

What about a musical instument? That would lead to a discussion of fractions (whole note, half note, quarter note, dotted note, etc.; also e.g.,3/4 time), patterns, and things like that in a less-obviously mathy way. Also, when I learned to play the piano, I thought of the keyboard as a number line with middle C representing zero and the white keys as whole notes and the black keys as decimals, and it really helped me to form a visual sense of numbers.

Another thing that might be mathy but not obviously so would be time. What about getting her a watch of some sort and then just incorporating discussions of time into your conversation during the day? For example, how much time until meals or particular events, how much time it takes her to get ready in the morning, how long a t.v. show is compared to a movie, or really anything.

Another thought would be origami, although she's young yet and may have trouble with the fine motor skills.

What about going on hikes or bike rides with a pedometer or bike computer and figuring out steps over a certain period of time, or elapsed time, or how long it takes to walk 50 steps up a steep hill vs. on a flat surface? You could also time her running different distances.

Or you could try simple sewing projects together that would involve measuring and cutting, size scales, etc.

I think I would attempt to compliment her subtly on her good figuring skills, but I could also see that doing that would call attention to the fact that she was doing "math" and that could end her enjoyment of the activity, so I guess I would play this by ear based on her personality and reactions.

Thought of a couple more things she could do on her own that might explore math concepts: a child-friendly abacus that would let her explore patters and addition/subration/multiplication/division or tangrams that would help her explore shapes and fractions. Or, thinking more, what about a DS game like "Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box" that focuses on logic games?

Thanks so much. A lot of great ideas, and I will definitely try them out.

We did and IQ test at 5 for CTY. And did the WPPSI. We had some issues with processing speed also, though the her verbal scores were well 99.9%.

Although it was useful for CTY entry, it was useless to me in other ways. There wasn't anything I didn't already know. We were going for accelerated math and she had to do a placement test for math anyway for CTY, so she could be above grade level.

Her scores really didn't change the path I laid out for extracurriculars. And it couldn't be used in our school system. If you can use them for early K, then go for it but she is already 5 and I am not sure why she didn't already enter K.

Our tester told us that other clients she has in the area did the DYS application and didn't find much use. Some enjoyed the options when the kids got older but got nothing out of it (we are in New York City) in the early years.

So what you need for your child should depend on why you do the testing now. I was originally told she was going to get the WISC and didn't know until I got the results it was the WPPSI. If I hadn't needed a score for CTY, I wish I had waited.

Ren

We are doing the WPPSI in April after dd3 turns 4. I suspect she is much more than MG, and I will die of curiosity if we wait until she can take the WISC to get more of an idea of what we are dealing with. Also, it will encourage her teacher to allow her to move more quickly currently and allow us to decide and advocate for options like early entrance to kindy, etc.

She just turned 5, less than a month ago, and in our area there is no exception to the rule that kids must be 5 in September to start K that year. So she's totally ineligible for K, even if we weren't planning to homeschool.

My son did the WPPSI at 5.3 (the private gifted school accepted only this test) and he hit 2 ceilings in the Performance section and 2 in the verbal which makes the test kind of useless for truly understanding his strengths and weakness. I don't even think of him as a PG/genius kind of kid. I would absolutely recommend waiting for WISC.

Also, for many gifted kids processing speed lags the other IQ measures. WPSII doesn't have a way of calculating a general ability index without processing speed, WISC does.

Well, I have an update and a quick question. I had decided that we would just wait to test until DD turned 6, but when DH got home he disagreed. It is so rare that he disagrees with me (LOL) that I tend to let him make the decisions whenever he does. So, we are going to have DD assessed in the next few days/weeks.

I am of half a mind to just go in and let them decide what tests would be most appropriate (I've been told they will most likely do both IQ & achievement testing). They are experts, after all, not just random psychs off the street.

But then the other part of my mind can't quite let go of the idea that I need to go in there knowing what tests I think would be best and why. I'm pretty clear that the WPPSI is not ideal, so I guess for IQ it'd be the SB, the DAS, or the WJ (and I'm not a fan of the WJ). Any thoughts on what is best?

I don't know much about achievement, so I'm at a bit of a loss there. Is there anything, really, besides the WJ, and, if so, is it better? My major concern is that DD doesn't have all the basics down yet (e.g., saying the names of letters), yet she can do much higher-level stuff (e.g., reading fluently). So theoretically the best sort of test would be one that wouldn't penalize her too much for saying "s" when she sees a "c," and would let her go on to read "stupendous" or "marshmallow" or whatever.