Standardized testing and gifted kids

[Halcyon]

We are considering signing my kids up for an "out of home" standardized test (the Terra Nova) with a homeschool group.My younger has never taken a "real" standardized test. He has taken a couple of online tests (DOMA) but nothing that requires more than 30 minutes of focused work. My older has taken CAT and Explore.  I am not required to test for the state, this would just be for 1) test practice and 2) making sure there aren't any major gaps and (maybe?) 3) finding out how ahead they really are? particularly in the case of younger, who I alternately don't feel is challenged enough or is at his limit.

 

Should I have my kids take their grade level test, or above grade level? WHat are the reasons why one would give a higher grade level test to a child? Both my kids are all over the place with the grade level of their work: younger is ahead in math, writing and reading comp,vocab and grammar. Older is ahead in most subjects, but not writing or reading comp. 

 

I am curious to see how they would do if they were given an above level test, but....not really. LOL. I just dont want the test to be ridiculously easy. My son took a grade level CAT in 4th and he got every question right. It was a nice intro to testing, but a litlte bit of a waste of time. At the same time, it would make them feel good to do well on a grade level test. Older in particular is not as confident in his skills as younger, and it wouldn't hurt him to take a grade level test. OTOH, this will be younger's first standardized test..so maybe he should do a more straightforward grade level test just to gain experience. I do know he has certain gaps (telling time??? LOL) so maybe I would learn of others.

 

Opinions appreciated.

 

 

[Dmmetler]

I have my DD test at grade level or close to it (she's a year ahead of her age on paper, so she does test at that grade) when we're testing in a group of kids we know, for social reasons. I save the out of level stuff for talent search (where even if she's younger than the kids in her room, they don't seem to care (and she generally only knows any of the kids she does know from math competitions)) or at home. DD tends to "pull her punches" if she's concerned that others will be embarrassed or feel bad, so I suspect that I wouldn't get useful information if she were with kids she knows anyway, so it might as well be "not useful" because she hit the ceiling as opposed to "not useful" because she deliberately missed questions when she saw another child was struggling. At least the former may be useful in proving she's on grade level if she should have to return to PS.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[MeAndTheBoys]

We have always tested at home.  The first year, I gave each of them two tests--their grade level and the one above.  DS1 blew both out of the water--so I've kept him testing above grade level.  DS2 blew his grade out of the water--but got a lot of 70s and 80s for the percentiles on the one above--so I've kept him on grade level.

 

My thought was that giving DS1 an on-grade level would be meaningless because he really isn't operating on that grade level.  But DS2 is operating on his grade level, even though he's on the high end--doing the two tests made it fairly clear to me.

 

We aren't required to test--I just like to see the results.  So I needed them to be meaningful to me.  We did CAT for several years, but switched to IOWA last year (and will do that this year--I just haven't ordered them yet).  The IOWA had a nice breakdown of skills that were evaluated--it was useful to me.

 

Betsy

[jar7709]

DS is in the middle of his very first bubble-type standardized test at home this week, grade-level ITBS/CogAT.  I can already tell he's going to hit the ceiling for a lot of it, as expected, but it is also removing his anxiety about this kind of thing and turning it into a more fun "see, you got this" kind of experience, which I was hoping for.  He's finding much of it pretty easy from a content standpoint, but the experience itself is enough of a challenge for him right now. 

 

I chose the at-grade level test because in addition to just getting used to the format, at this point and for a few reasons I do want to have some test results that compare directly with his age-mates at PS, and I'm not so much looking to have test results that show me where his weaker areas lie--I know that already from the homeschooling.   I don't know what we'll do next year yet, we'll see how this test and the next year goes and re-evaluate at that point. 

 

DD isn't old enough to need testing or assessment per our state yet, so I'm milking that for all it's worth.  ;) 

[Little Women]

I've always done a year ahead.   I do the tests for me, not for anyone else, and I know I won't learn anything if I do them on grade level.   I already KNOW they can do well past grade-level work, so what's the point?

 

This year, for the first time, I'm doing two years above grade level.   My 3rd dd took the ACT in 7th grade, and scored college level on every subject.   This year, we didn't do a standardized test at all, but my youngest really needs to do one (and that one will be grade level because she is mildly dyslexic).   So I decided I will go ahead and do a test for dd3 as well.   She's technically finishing 8th grade, but I asked her if she wanted to do the 9th grade test or the 10th, and she chose 10th.   I am fine with that, since I don't have to show it to anybody.   :)     We'll see how it goes--she's always just about topped out the one year ahead tests, so I'm not worried, but it will be interesting to see how she does.

[ElizabethB]

Letsgolearn, computer adaptive to their actual level. I did one grade above in ITBS before switching to letsgolearn. Last year, between the two of them, they received scores ranging from 0.5 to 12th grade level for the various subtests.

 

I used the ADAM k-7 and the DORA. The ADAM K7 is linked to Kahn for remediation.

 

http://www.letsgolearn.com/lglsite/products/

 

I got much more useful info from the letsgolearn tests.

[wapiti]

FWIW, my dd13's school gave her the Terra Nova last week.  They had her take math at a grade level ahead (8th) because she's in an 8th grade math class (second half of alg 1).  She took the reading and language parts at her actual grade level (7th).  She thought the math part was easier  :tongue_smilie:.  Looking at her report from last year, it's not clear whether she took a different grade level for math at that time.