Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment COGAT Results/GT Center Placement Questions

My son (K - Age 5, turns 6 in summer) recently went through our district's GT testing process (they do the COGAT and NNAT over two 2 hr periods on successive Saturdays in small groups). His scores were pretty high and qualify him for our district's center based GT program (stand alone classroom format with in a neighborhood school, 1 GT class per grade). Just for background, his scores/percentiles were (Age Percentile first, Grade Level Percentile in Parentheses):

NNAT: 99% (99%)
COGAT Verbal: 99% (98%)
COGAT Quant: 99% (98%)
COGAT NonVerbal: 95% (93%)
COGAT COMPOSITE: 99% (99%)

I've read a lot about how COGAT is not a great test, there's no way to give derive a relative IQ, etc., but we're pretty happy he qualified for the program.

Now we're faced with a choice of whether or not to send him to the Center. It's relatively close by and housed at an excellent school and I'm hopeful it will be more challenging for him. But, I do want to visit the program and get a feeling for the classroom and get some more questions about the program answered. He's currently getting a lot of extra attention/pull-outs at his current school. He's subject accelerated in reading to a 3rd grade room, does special projects with the librarian, etc. But, he doesn't really have a peer group and at this point, I'm not sure a grade skip would be enough or that he's ready for that yet socially (I've read nation deceived, etc and I'm not against grade skips, just not sure it's the right path for him). For all of these reasons, we're leaning towards sending him to the GT Center, but I was hoping I could get some ideas of questions/ideas for what to ask about when I go visit. Here's what I have so far:

- General Questions about class size, format, etc
- HW questions: I'm hopeful that they stick with their mantra of "different, not more," but we'll have to see
- How they deal with kids at different levels/differentiation (you only have to score 95% in one area to qualify for the program, so levels can vary)
- Will they subject accelerate if needed?
- How much time is spent on social/emotional issues?
- How much integration with Gen Ed kids at the school...I'm hopeful recess, specials, etc. are at the same time and the GT program is not too segregated.

Anyone have other ideas I should add to my list...

sending you a PM -- flashing envelop at the top.

Hi jen in co -

I think you've got a great list of questions. I can't think of much to add except to ask how they deal with certain asynchronous development issues (e.g., handwriting). In our local school, it seemed that they were holding DS back in math because he wouldn't be able to keep up with the writing. We have since changed to a school for HG kids, and although they help work on handwriting issues, they do not consider it a reason to hold my kid back.

We have only been at the HG school for a few months, but there have been some dramatic changes. For example, even though DS was given lots of differentiation and pullouts at the local school, he still had a bunch of time in the regular classroom, and he would do things like pick super easy books for free choice reading, and complain about doing any reading at home. Now, he happily picks up books that are at his level and reads without me telling him too. In fact, I was amused recently to have had to tell the kid to stop reading - I didn't think that would ever happen. I think he sees what the other kids in his class - his intellectual peers - are reading, and he's just realized on his own he should be reading those books too. DS also made some good friends right away.

My other plug for full-time GT (if you have that option) is that at some point, the subject acceleration and pullouts become further and further away from the base grade, and differentiation becomes more difficult without acceleration (subject and/or full grade).

I see one of your questions is about class size. From our personal experience, we have now become believers that class size is irrelevant if you have a great teacher. Our DS is now in a very large class, in a very small room in an old building. But none of that matters once we found the right educational fit. Our DS leaves school skipping!

Good point about asynchronous development...right now my DS is somewhat held back in reading b/c his writing is more age typical. They do scribe for him, but they're pushing him to finish the DRA level 28 (end of 2nd grade reading) himself which requires a significant amount of writing. His actual reading level is more like end of 3rd, beginning of 4th, but they're so focused on getting him to write his own summaries that he rarely gets to read that stuff at school. They will scribe for him sometimes, but not as often as I would like.

Right now, we're definitely leaning towards the full time gifted program. I get to visit on Wednesday and I'm looking forward to it.

Thanks again