I got DD8's KTEA-3 report from the school today.
Her scores were:
ASB: 149
Reading Composite: 136
Math Composite: 142
Written Language Composite: 139

Her subscores were:
Letter and Word Recognition: 123
Reading Comprehension: 141
Math Concepts and Applications: 129
Math Computation: 148
Written Expression: 138
Spelling: 132
Phonological Processing: 115
Nonsense Word Decoding: 122
Silent Reading Fluency: 137
Word Recognition Fluency: 134
Decoding Fluency: 114
Reading Vocabulary: 145
Associational Fluency: 81
Object Naming Fluency: 108
Listening Comprehension: 125
Oral Expression: 141
Writing Fluency: 117

I'm really surprised that her language scores are lower than her math scores, because I definitely consider her stronger in language.

Is it worth it to apply for DYS, even though she's 3 points below having two scores >=145? I really don't think I can get the school to give her an IQ test. They were somewhat resistant to giving this, and said there's at least a six month wait for the psychologist for IQ testing.

Is ASB the overall composite? I would probably apply. It doesn't take a lot in money or time to send in an application, and it might work.

Yes. ASB is Academic Skills Battery, so the overall score.

1. Can't hurt to ask, especially if you need the advocacy/support resources.

2. Keep in mind that reading is made up of both decoding skills and comprehension. Once you reach fluent decoding, there is a hard ceiling on how high your score can go. Her decoding and encoding skills are high enough that there is likely little space to develop (beyond about the mid high school level in reading (and phonetic decoding tops out even earlier, late in middle school)). A highly-capable decoder of this age is usually limited on decoding scores by her vocabulary and experience, rather than her actual decoding skills. Comprehension is another matter. If you look at her reading comprehension, that is among her highest scores (along with math computation, written expression, and oral expression), which is a pattern of personal strength in higher-level language skills that is consistent with your anecdotal observations, as the only non-language score among them is calculations, rather than math reasoning.

Thanks aeh!

We could really use the advocacy for both DD and DS. Our district isn't quite sure how to handle them. DS7 will be taking the KTEA tomorrow. He's a bit more variable than her, so I don't know how his scores will turn out. They may be higher because he's younger, but his skills in some areas are comparable to or higher than hers, especially in math. He's a lot weaker in spelling and writing though.

The difference between comprehension and decoding really resonates with me. Thanks for pointing that out.

I just realized I missed the letter naming fluency score in my first post. That was 99. In the composites that use that, her score is lower because she's average at naming letters for a third grader. Makes me wonder what a kid that's highly above average in naming letters in third grade looks like.

I was surprised that her associative fluency was so low as well. We play lots of Scattegories, etc. and she's good at that.

Her lowest three scores are all timed tasks, two of which feed into the Oral Fluency composite. LNF does not, but is still a timed task. So it's not that she was necessarily inaccurate naming letters, but that she didn't say them very quickly.

Actually, in general, fluency is her lowest area, with only reading fluency for real words up in her cognitive range. But as you may know, quite a lot of GT individuals have relatively lower processing speed (not generally below average, but closer to average), without any particular pathology. On AF, she may have been trying to come up with unusual responses, instead of boring but qualifying answers. E.g., if I were to ask a student to name as many vehicles as they could in one minute, some children with very deep vocabularies would want to give "interesting" responses, like Lamborghini, Harrier Jump Jet (with or without its military or civilian model numbers), etc., which might take them a beat or two longer to come up with. Another student, who might actually have a smaller vocabulary, might take the efficient but not fancy route, with truck, pickup truck, semi truck, dump truck. Or sometimes I get students who will only name whole subcategories, so, for instance, once "truck" has been named, they won't say any other kind of truck, which results in lower scores, even though they actually know and can name many more kinds of trucks. If this matters at all to you, you could probably get an inkling of whether any of these situations were applicable by asking her 1) what she was asked to name a lot of, and 2) what she gave as answers. (I'm not giving the actual categories from any of the most common tests, in the interest of test security.) Given her vocabulary, I would guess that she was going for interesting and unique answers.

I finally got DS7's results today:
His scores were:
ASB: 141
Reading Composite: 133
Math Composite: 156
Written Language Composite: 107

His subscores were:
Letter and Word Recognition: 119
Reading Comprehension: 140
Math Concepts and Applications: 146
Math Computation: 160
Written Expression: 102
Spelling: 112
Phonological Processing: 117
Nonsense Word Decoding: 117
Silent Reading Fluency: 122
Word Recognition Fluency: 127
Reading Vocabulary: 101
Associational Fluency: 135
Object Naming Fluency: 88
Listening Comprehension: 144
Oral Expression: 136
Letter Naming Facility: 78
Writing Fluency: 83
Math Fluency: 107

Not much there that we didn't know. We can't keep up with him in math, his reading is strong, and his writing is weak.

He's four points below the cutoffs for DYS and DD8 was three points below. I was really hoping one of them would qualify to help us with advocacy. Do I apply anyway? Try to get private IQ testing done? Would the potential dysgraphia diagnosis help us here to "justify" his writing score being low?

I'm also starting to wonder if we need to look more into a stealth dyslexia diagnosis. He reads very, very well in context. But it seems like all of the subtests that require reading/identifying letters/words/pictures out of context or quickly are weaknesses. His associational fluency is high (unlike DD8's), but his object naming fluency is low. His letter naming facility is low, writing fluency is low, and math fluency is low compared to his other math scores. His reading vocabulary and word recognition scores don't really match his reading comprehension level (both from this test, DRA-2, and classroom experience). I think that he relies a lot on context to figure things out.

It feels like his highest scores are things he can do in his head, or had context clues for him to use. The lowest scores are identifying pictures/letters/words without context or quickly.

The other tests we have are
Beery VMI:
VMI: 93 %-ile, VP: 99.9 %-ile, MC: 30 %-ile

GFTA: <.01 %-ile

EVT: 99 %-ile

PPVT: 99.5 %-ile

DRA-2: 70

We have an IEP meeting next Monday to discuss OT, ST, and acceleration for next year. Where do we go from here?

I'd suggest applying. The application is a simple process and the worst outcome is not getting accepted.

From the website:

"Q. What if my child does not meet the minimum qualification criteria?
As we strive to serve the extreme of the gifted population, the scores listed on our website are considered to be the minimum eligibility requirements. However, we recognize that testing is only a small snapshot of a whole child and we take the entire application into consideration when determining eligibility. If the tester feels there were extraneous circumstances preventing a child from meeting the minimum criteria, a letter from the tester included with the application to explain the test scores will be considered in the review process. You may also review the Supplemental Information section on the Qualification Criteria page if you would like to include additional information that you believe may assist the review committee in making a decision. Many very bright students may not meet our qualification criteria for this program, but are likely to benefit from the information and free resources that the Davidson Institute makes available to the public via our websites, including our searchable Davidson Gifted Database, the public Gifted Issues discussion forum, and several guidebooks."

My son was slightly below the criteria - with a well documented reason that depressed his score. I applied anyway after much second-guessing and procrastination. I included one supplemental document - a letter explaining why I consider his score to be lower than actual ability and what evidence leads me to the conclusion. He was accepted! So it does happen!

You've received great advice above. Apply for both kids. I'll just add that if a child is not accepted into the DYS program at this time, you may reapply at a future date. A child is not limited to one application in a lifetime.

Here's more from the Davidson DYS webpages:
This would seem to indicate that scores just missing the cutoff (and within the standard error's confidence interval to include the cutoff score for eligibility) may be considered, depending upon the strength of other portions of the application...

also

Extenuating circumstances, as determined by the applicant and family...

Thank you! That's good to hear! I don't have a letter from the tester, and I'm not sure I could easily get one. The school was pretty reluctant to give the tests at all. I do have the OT report though, in regard to the writing difficulty.
His teacher would write an excellent letter for him. And he hit the ceiling (160) on the math computations test, so the math score could have potentially been higher.

My son's tester commented he had correct answer outside of the scorable time - significant considering my son's issue is verrrrrrrry slooooooooooooow processing speed from ADHD. However, the tester was either unable or unwilling to put that statement in writing. I wrote the letter that I included.

It sounds like you have both similar pieces of information for your son. You have evidence of dysgraphia and you have a teacher who sees his true abilities. Perhaps a writing sample in which he had his accomodations in place would round out the application.

Best of luck to you. I'm curious to see how it turns out.

Yes, something may be worth investigating. Although his semantic retrieval fluency is excellent, his rapid naming skills are poor, which is the aspect of fluency that is most relevant for dyslexia and dysgraphia. And his comprehension scores are well above his decoding scores. It is possible that he may be reading largely by sight, though his phonological processing, while much weaker than his language comprehension, is not really so bad that I would be hugely concerned. He can sound out words when he needs to, and I suspect he is decoding well enough. His word recognition score is not at all weak. I think I would be more interested in the dysgraphia direction, although I would still keep an eye on the word-level decoding skills, where he is still relatively young, and the expectations for phonetic decoding are not fully formed in NT 2nd graders.

Regarding Reading Vocabulary: this subtest is not a measure of decoding skills, but of reading comprehension. This is particularly interesting, given what you've noted about his reading in context, as (estimating from his standard score) he did fine as long as there were picture cues for the meaning of the word (which also means they were more concrete vocabulary words), and he just had to identify the synonym from a list, but appears to have reached his limit when he had to identify the specific word in a sentence that was a synonym of the target word (which also meant more abstract words). This suggests to me that he derives a great deal of meaning from text by inferring the overall meaning of the sentence without knowing the exact meaning of many of the individual words. So it's not that he's decoding from context, but that he's comprehending from context. (ETA: Reading Vocabulary does actually include context for the non-picture-cued items, but you still have to know exactly what the words mean, not approximately.)
And, likely, gradually developing his vocabulary from these context clues. This is also consistent with his exceptionally strong picture-cued expressive and receptive vocabulary. He can match a word to a pictorial depiction of its meaning, but isn't quite solid on purely verbal definitions, which are a more sophisticated demonstration of vocabulary knowledge. It is possible this particular low score will sort itself out in a couple of years, as he narrows down the oral definitions of some of the words for which he currently has a less specific sense of their meaning.

I think we discussed his extremely poor articulation scores previously, and their possible impact on phonetic decoding and encoding (spelling) skills. (Though he's doing better in those areas than I would have expected, if articulation were affecting them significantly.) His motor coordination on the VMI is considerably below his perceptual skills. More evidence for a possible dysgraphic category of concern, and also consistent with an oral-motor basis for his artic weaknesses, rather than a phonological processing basis.

OT & ST make perfect sense. I would carefully monitor both of them, especially with an eye to long-term assistive technologies, as his severe artic issues may make speech-to-text less accessible (depending on how intractable they prove to be), in which case typing may well become a critical part of his future access to written expression. By this I mean that lack of reasonable progress toward functional handwriting or speech-to-text skills should trigger earlier adoption of typing as a primary mode of written communication, as persons with weaker motor coordination usually need more time to achieve fluency in typing.

So yes, I think something may be going on, but I lean toward dysgraphia, rather than dyslexia.

Thank you! It's good to hear that they took a letter you wrote yourself into consideration.

Thanks so much aeh!

Regarding his reading vocabulary/comprehension...

His teacher (who is nothing short of phenomenal), saw early this year that his reading level was well beyond their second grade class. She created a reading group for him with DD8 and the two highest readers in fourth grade. She assigns them books and meets with them once a week to discuss.

At first, she tried middle school level nonfiction books about space, etc. Then they moved up to Tales of King Arthur (I think their version had a Lexile of 900), which was also deemed "way too easy." Currently, they are reading the original 20,000 Leagues under the Sea. He's able to read and understand it as well as any of the three girls in the group.

When I showed the teacher his test scores, she was amazed that his reading vocabulary score wasn't higher. But I think that much of what you're saying is correct. He relies a lot on the context to get the general idea of what the sentence is saying.

I thought he was done with testing after the KTEA, but he said they pulled him out of class for three hours yesterday for a reading test where he had to (in his words) "read like five informative stories, one descriptive story, and only one fable, and answer boring questions about them."

I'm not sure what else they'd even be trying to evaluate as far as reading comprehension goes that wasn't thoroughly covered by the KTEA, DRA, or MAP.

I also talked briefly with the principal yesterday before I knew about this reading test, and asked if she had seen his KTEA report. She said yes, but she wanted to wait until his IEP to talk about it because they "had come up with several options they wanted to present to us." That sounds like they're still going to try to deny the full grade acceleration. Sigh....

Three hours for a reading test? He must have done something else besides reading. The longest reading test I can think of typically takes no more than an hour. Is it possible they did cognitive testing too? You should have signed a consent to test, that specified the nature of the assessments. Check to see what was on there besides academic achievement.

Make sure you request and receive all testing reports (not just scores; you should be getting narratives with a signature under them) before the meeting. For IEP meetings, you have a right to written eval reports 2 school days prior to the meeting.

I don't know. The three hours was his estimate, so it could be exaggerated. But he did say that he started, then went to recess, then went back to test, and went to lunch, and finished the test after lunch recess.

I don't have a copy of the consent form with me right now, but I seem to remember it being pretty general--just I understand the assessments might include any of the following areas, and then it listed speech/language, OT, behavioral/emotional, cognitive, achievement.

They told me at the start that they couldn't do IQ testing because there's not an in-district psychologist, and the psychologist that comes in to do testing is booked into next school year. This test was given by the speech therapist. She mentioned the CELF (I think that's what it was) at the start, and I said that I thought the other tests would be sufficient for his language evaluation, but none of that was in writing.

Does the CELF have a significant reading portion?

That helps. The CELF-5 does have optional reading and writing portions, although they typically are not given in a situation where a comprehensive achievement instrument has already been administered. The primary interest in administering both oral and written language measures is to compare receptive and expressive language in the oral and the written contexts. E.g., listening comprehension vs reading comprehension, and oral expression vs written expression. However, the lowest scorable age range is nine for reading and writing, so these would have to be for clinical information only. If she gave the entire CELF-5, with all of its optional subtests, and he needed many items to reach a natural ceiling, then three hours becomes a more realistic estimate (still a little high, but reasonable with the noted breaks). Another possibility is that she gave a different measure of reading (for the same clinical reason), such as the TORC, GORT, or GSRT. Did he have to read them out loud, or did he have the option of silent reading?

The SLP's language testing is a little more in-depth than the oral language measures from an achievement test like the KTEA-3, and can (hypothetically) be analyzed on more finely-grained clinical dimensions, which would be why additional eval in language might take place.

And most places I'd be just a bit shocked by the absence of an in-district psych, but where you live, they are constantly advertising job openings, and often have positions that consist of coverage for a region a hundred miles across. I know people who've tried conducting evals by Skype/FaceTime...

I don't know if it was silent or out loud reading. I'm going to see if I can get more information when I pick him up from school.
And yes, staffing here is a serious issue. There has been a school psychologist position listed at least since we moved here. And the superintendent cold-called me shortly after we moved in to ask if I would teach high school math (that position is still posted too).

She said it was the Morris Informal Reading Inventory, which she has to give to a certain number of kids at different reading levels because she's working on getting her literacy endorsement.
Still wish she had asked me first.