My dd will be doing the ACT with extended time (UPDATE in #13))

[TravelingChris]

I have managed to get my dd extended time for both the SAT and the ACT.  The SAT process was extremely easy and we got the answer in about two days.  The ACT is more involved.  My dd had to first sign up for the ACT and then send in materials to ACT to get the time extension.  After they received it, they called and wanted another letter with some specific things said in that letter.  I did that letter and  emailed it to the person and she then sent the whole package off to the person who makes the decision. After that email, we checked the ACT student site daily and it took about three more days for the site to say that she has been approved. 

 

I am posting this post so anyone who needs help with this can ask questions which maybe I will be able to answer.  I had heard that it was almost impossible to get ACT approval and I was really relieved to see it wasn't so hard at all.    My dd is diagnosed with reading disability, which is the DSM term for dyslexia. 

 

 

[emzhengjiu]

Congratulations on getting the accommodations.   My daughter is dyslexic as well.   She's taken the PSAT this year as a 10th grader, but I haven't yet asked for extended time for her for any of the exams.  She's very bright and a strong reader now after remediation but works slowly.  Would you mind telling me what documentation the SAT requires?   

[TechWife]

Thanks for posting this. Was your starting point for the ACT the form that shows up on the web site? I'm confused by how to get started with them. I'm not sure how to select a test site, either. Any help you can offer with it will be appreciated. 

[TravelingChris]

The SAT is easier. I would recommend that anyone wanting the ACT accommodations, first get them for the college board.  THat would cover the PSAT, SAT, SAT II, AP tests, CLEP, all of those tests. You need to have a neuropsych evaluation, normally within the last three years,  THere are specific tests they are looking for- namely both Academic Achievement test and Academic Achievement test.  Since I live in a state where we have to enroll in a church school, I volunteered to be the church school's SSD coordinator for the College Board.  I made sure that the school had the neuropsych evaluations and the written educational plan (the recommendations that the testing psychologist made including extended time on tests, using Voice to text program, etc, etc.).  For the SAT, they need to be done within the last five years but any psychiatric or medical diagnosis needs to be done within the last year.  I have helped another kid get accommodations too for the College Board.   For the College Board, they didn't even need the actual test results but if I had been in a state where I don't have a church school or cover school doing this for me, I would have had to send them.  You do need DSM diagnosis which for dyslexia is reading disorder, but as you all probably know, they normally get a few diagnosis along the way.  Mine also has ADHD inattenttive and several other ones.

 

For the ACT, you first choose a testing date and sign your kid up.  The location doesn't matter because if they approve the accommodation, they will find the school for you.  You fill out the form and note that for homeschoolers, some of the blanks aren't necessary.  Then you need to send a big package to them- a cover letter which should include how the child has had the problem since early education- I ended up mentioning it being obvious by second grade= and how you have accommodated so far and where has that accommodation occurred.  I talked about how not only at home but at Sunday School and outside classes has she been accommodated with extra time or extra help.  I stopped doing timed tests with her except for mandatory standardized tests by about the second grade.  I was always panicking about the standardized tests but she is really smart and even with the dyslexia, managed to get at least average to some above average scores, except for spelling, and math calculations, but I would send in blacked out test results to the school district only showing cumulative scores.  THen I sent a copy of her complete neuropsych evaluation, and a copy of the already accomplished College Board accommodations letter.  In my case, I hadn't sent a clear enough statement originally about when we started accommodations and the extent of them before I sent the package- I had discussed them but not in the wording they wanted.  If you want, I will PM you a redacted copy of my first letter and then the second one that did the trick.OH, and you also have to send a copy of the admission ticket. After they decide your kid does have accommodations, they will make a new admission ticket on the website for your child to print out.  My dd is ending up going to the same school she was originally signed up for but told to tell them that she needs the extended time room.

[TravelingChris]

Oh, it is the ACT that requires complete documentation within the last three years, I believe and colleges need that too (within the last three years).

[8filltheheart]

I am glad you posted, Chris. I hope others read your post and are encouraged to pursue extra time. I have been beating myself up the past several months bc I didn't pursue it for my ds. I didn't bother bc I didn't pursue it soon enough. He took the test in middle school for CTY and scored high enough that we didn't worry about it. But, now that he is pursuing top,schools and competing for scholarships against kids with near perfect scores, his "high enough" scores may knock him out of the running bc his scores are definitely not representative of his actual abilities. (Especially the Act reading and science reasoning sections. He was so reading fatigued by the end of the ACT that his science reasoning score killed his ACT score every time.)

 

I explained his dyslexia and not pursuing extra time in my counselor letters to the different schools, but I really wish that I had made the effort to not be put in this position.

 

For others facing this, do you know if it makes a difference if they have taken any of the tests w/o extra time before they apply? One of the reasons I didn't was bc ds took AP chem and BC in 10th w/o extra time and scored well. I was then lead to believe bc he didn't need the accommodations then that they wouldn't grant him extra time. But, the difference is that neither of those are reading intensive tests lasting 3 hrs. Give him math and he is fine. Give him long passages to read, and he is slow and just gets slower over the 3 hrs. when we ordered his score reports you could see where he slowed down and then just ran out of time.). Should we have pursued it prior to the APs?

 

I hope our experience will keep someone else from making the same mistake.

[TravelingChris]

My daughter first started taking the test when she was 12, SHe scored well enough to be eligible for the CTY program but the lower one, not the highter one.  SHe kept trying each year to do

better.  SHe was doing slightly better but while even at 16 she scored well enough to get into some college (19), it obviously wasn't what she needs to get.  Now, having the experience of two older children, who both got almost the same scores as each other, and knowing that she is equally smart, I knew that it was the amount of time that was hindering her (they both got over 10 points higher on the ACT).  Here is how I tested how much time she actually needed:  I took her last test, taken at 10th grade, and we had ordered the booklet so i could go over problems with her.  I regave her the reading portion and this time without any time constraint.  She then actually had time to read the story and her score improved dramatically.  We also were able to figure out that she needs time and a half, and not anything more. 

[Tokyomarie]

Thank you, Chris, for detailing your experience. As I have said before, my son entered a B&M school during 11th grade (and then was promptly reclassified as a 10th grader because it's a 3 year program) so the school took care of submitting the documentation. However, with complete up-to-date evaluations that demonstrated the need, the process was actually fairly straightforward. Whether you are looking for ACT or SAT accommodations, thoroughly reading the SSD portion of the Collegeboard site will help you understand what documentation is necessary.

 

I had been led to believe that ACT would be more difficult than SAT to get. Indeed the process at ACT is less streamlined. However, my son was granted everything we requested from both agencies.

 

My son did have to test through "Special Testing" because he had a computer accommodation for the essay. I'm not sure how streamlined finding a location for "Special Testing" for homeschoolers is because it involved school personnel proctoring him at school, on a different day, rather than sitting the test on the same day at a national testing location.

[EKS]

THANK YOU so much for this post.  I had been hesitant to apply for ACT accommodations (my son already has them for the SAT), but your post made me think I might actually be successful.  I did what you said about writing a letter detailing the accommodations my son has received in our homeschool as well as the accommodations he received at schools he previously attended.  I sent everything in last Friday and he was approved yesterday.  They must have approved him almost immediately.

 

:party:

 

 

[OneStepAtATime]

This is such a helpful post!  I have a dyslexic 7th grader in the process of reading remediation and it is going very well.  She is possibly also dyscalculic and remediation with math is helping but she still struggles in basic math computation.  Reading is so improved from even a year ago.  However, speed is just not there and probably never will be.  Just as a PP said, fatigue is a huge issue.  Performance drops dramatically after a bit.  

 

Our only assessment so far was in 5th grade and it was through a CALT specialist with other training, not a neuropsychologist.  She did a great job, but I don't think this type of assessment would be accepted and it will be too old when she takes the SAT/ACT.  I know DD will need extra time for testing.  I was going to have her get a more thorough eval this year through a true neuropsych but since remediation is working, and we would have to go way out of town for someone qualified to test her and I would like to save the money until the eval is truly needed, would it make more sense to wait until 9th grade to accomodate the "eval in the last three years" requirement?  Or 10th?  Or next year in 8th?

[MtnTeaching]

Thank you, thank you, thank you!  I have a 9th grader who struggles with the time limits.  She is a bit concerned because she must take the Iowa Basic Skills Test again next month and even that type of timed test is worrying.  She just gets exhausted.  They give the complete battery in two days.  It is four hours each day and it is just exhausting.  

 

Knowing that she may be able to get accommodations for the ACT is a huge relief.  We do need to get an updated evaluation.  She had the last one done in 6th grade.

 

This really helps by giving us an avenue to pursue and the directions on how to get there.  This forum is awesome!!

[TravelingChris]

NM

[TravelingChris]

UPDATE!!

 

My daughter did the ACT on Dec 14, 2013 with the extended time.  She was sick at that time (sinus infection which wasn't diagnosed yet), and as a result did not take her ADHD medicines and overall she says she knew she wouldn't be doing good on math or science or writing because she was so tired with doing two tests in a row and then, of course, the test was overall so much longer that she was really feeling poorly by the writing portion.

 

Here are some of her results and comparison to when she took it in Feb of 2013. Now mind you, the only improvement I would credit to more education is the math improvement (though this test did not show her true abilities since she couldn't think very well analytically with her sinus infection).  Her reading ability has not improved really at all since then; she always was a smart kid but dyslexic and slower.

 

                         DEC2013                           FEB2013

Composite           25 (84%)                                  21(63%)

English                25 (78%)                                  22 (63%)

   Usage/Mech              11 (65%)                                                   11 (64%)

   Rhetorical skills         16(98%)                                                    12(78%)

 

Math                    21 (55%)                                  19(46%)

  PreAlg/Elem Alg         11 (55%)                                                   10 (48%)

  Alg/ Coor Geom         10  (50%)                                                  10 (50%)

  Plane Geo/Trig           12 (73%)                                                   10 (51%)

 

Reading              30 (90%)                                   20 (48%)

  SocStu/Science        17  (97%)                                                   09 (40%)

  Arts/Lit                        14  (79%)                                                   10 (48%)

 

Science               22 (63%)                                   21 (56%)

 

Combined English/Writing was 23(70%) and the writing score was 7(52%) which is fantastic considering she doesn't spell well at all, has problems remembering where to put commas, and was sick, without medication, without any other accommodation other than an extra 15 minutes for the writing.  She normally uses spell checkers, grammar checkers, and asks someone like me to further edit it.

 

[Guest Vinograd]

Congratulations to your daughter, Chris!

And thank you for your post!