Jump to content

Menu

can someone help me interpret these scores


Asma_08
 Share

Recommended Posts

I applied to the gifted magnet program in my school district. Basically because I am unsure about my ability to really give my son a great education. Well the scores he received have just supported my fears. They administer the Stanford 10 and NNAT. His NNAt score is pretty good, although lower than I expected ( I really thought he was highly gifted:))

 

His Stanford scores: reading and math in 80's, and science/social studies very low,so low its not even on their scale.

 

I don't seem to be covering the material that public schools are covering. Its definitely made me feel that I am letting him down, I don't want him to be behind due to my lack of discipline with homeschooling. Can I get some advice as to how to beef up our homeschooling, maybe I need a box curriculum? I know my husband is very pro homeschooling but for me those nagging doubts remain.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am not sure what type of questions he was asked for social studies or science but could it just be that you covered different material? I ask because when my oldest had completed his first year of homeschooling, he was 5 at the time, I gave him a standardized test and part included social studies and science. The social studies questions were questions like the national bird is what? (really general social studies questions). He has learned an entire year of the ancients... about which there were no questions. The science was similar...very general information but not what we had studied.

 

All the answers to the social studies and science that he got wrong... I simply told him the answers and he remembered them immediately so it was just that he wasn't exposed to those things before.

 

All I am saying is to think about your homeschool, only you can evaluate how you are doing but you may want to consider your long-term homeschooling goals and why you chose homeschooling in the first place.

 

I homeschool with the long-term goal of raising kids who love to learn and to be able to teach them at the pace and to the depth they need...what they learn year by year may not be exactly the same as they would learn in a school that same year but in the long run, my kids will have a more thorough education. After their 4 year rotations of history and science, they will know so much more than the most schooled children because they learned it in a fun and engaging way, not because they had to learn it to take a quiz (then could forget it immediately).

 

Your son is still young...follow his lead, provide lots of opportunities for him to be involved in his learning and what he is learning. Children learn so much more if they have a vested interest in what they are learning. My, almost 6yo, does not "do school" everyday. I provide all the tools and keep them where she can easily access them and when she is in the mood, we school. We may do a page of math in a day or 5-6 or none depending on the mood. I do try to be consistent about encouraging her to learn by introducing plenty of games, spending lots of time with her, and having her learning be natural to her environment...ie she counts change at the store, writes out the shopping list, figures out which is a better bargain, write letters and notes to family members, emails penpals, we read together or she reads to herself or her dolls, we play games like hangman, do madlibs to work on parts of speech, etc...For history and science we will follow the WTM rotations starting this year but until now we have raised tadpoles, butterflies, kept snakes, talked about lifecycles of plants, dissected flowers and discussed their parts, planted and kept a garden discussing what the plants need to grow well, discussed history topics through our readings and started reading SOTW and doing the activity pages.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My sons take the SAT evey year as well and it is definitely content related with science and history. I'm not sure how old your son is. Our scores in history have ranged from 97 percent to 70 percent and it is all about what was covered and whether I covered those exact questions or not. Science and history are SO subjective. They may also have asked him a question in a way he didn't understand. Do NOT worry about the science and history scores. If you REALLY want to, then go buy a test prep book specifically for Stanford and they will probably give you the list of topics they test over. I didn't find that particularly important, but math is another story:glare: I keep trying to get everything covered before the test and we never do.

 

Christine

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I really thought my son was highly gifted too. He's doing some subjects 3-5 grades ahead and when I read the characteristics of HG compared to Gifted he fits that much more closely. I had him tested in December. He tested as Moderately Gifted but his Memory Processing skills were 52 points lower then everything else. That brought his scores way down.

 

His Psychologist said that he definitely has some sort of Processing problem... along the lines of ADD, but slightly different. If he has asynchronous development then it could be that he has something challenging him. In those cases an accurate score isn't going to happen.

 

If all the other scores are in the high 90's I'd go with your instincts and consider the low score either a fluke or something to look a little more closely at. With things like History and Social Studies I'd say it was just that you are studying things differently then the average x grader.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Christina in ME

I really wouldn't worry about those scores. I remember when my oldest was very young and we did one of the standardized tests.... The questions were about community service and community helpers. They had never been exposed to those types of thinking, however she could have told them a great deal about Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece....

 

The courses in public school at those grade levels are teaching them that the postman (actually it's no longer a postman, it is a mail carrier or whatever they call it) is their friend. Our homeschool didn't teach that, therefore low social studies scores. And as for science, if you don't study what they study, you lose. You could study animals and they test on earth science.

 

I don't think you need to crack down or beef up your curriculum. You are probably just fine the way you are.

 

My very opinionated .02.

 

Christina in ME

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Judging from the ages of your dc, I assume it was your 6 yo that you had tested. I've administered the Stanford 10, and I think it has room for error with younger children. At his age, and again, I'm assuming that he took a K or 1st grade test, the test is read to the students. The only thing they read on their own is a portion of the reading test. Some kids really seem to struggle with paying attention when someone is reading to them. I watched kids drift off and miss important information. They then had to guess at answers.

 

I realize that these tests are normed, but a greater/lesser ability in auditory processing or attention span would affect scores. Just a thought--your son may score higher when he's able to read his own passages and questions.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hmmm , can't seem to figure out how to do multiple quotes.....

 

Yes, this was the six year old who was tested. It was the kindergarten test and yes he is distracted easily. I never thought about the fact that he was being read to could have been issue.

 

Thanks again for the comments, its definitely helping me have better perspective on the results. I think the only thing I will add is geography/map work. But I do need to be more consistent with keeping him on task and getting our work done, honestly I definitely have more than a few days where he wants to play and I just let him go with his brother.

 

 

So really its just about me being disciplined and instilling good habits in him. Thats much more important than standardized scores.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...