Should I prepare my DS for gifted testing?

[Luypie]

My DS is waiting for a gifted testing(WISC-V) in the new year (Feb. 2020). He scored high on COGAT and some gifted behaviour rating scale. Does anyone have an experience with WISC-V? I noticed there are workbooks available everywhere (online and offline). Should I get him a workbook before the test? or perhaps try some sample questions? 

I asked the psychologist about preps. She said it's her job to do the test and my job is to feed him and let him sleep well. My friend has her both kids in gifted program and she highly recommends to review the workbook beforehand. It is very competitive to get in, as they only have one class, which means they only take top 20-25 kids per grade. 

 

Edited December 17, 2019 by Luypie

[Shoes+Ships+SealingWax]

If you mean by attempting to teach him to “beat the test”, absolutely not - it is unethical & completely invalidates his score. He ought to get into the program (or not) entirely on his own merit. 

If you mean to alleviate jitters by giving him some vague idea of what will happen that day, then sure. 

[regentrude]

Neither of my kids studied for the WISC or were exposed to sample questions. It hadn't occurred to me to do so; wouldn't that skew the results? I was interested to learn their actual scores, not in gaming the system.

Edited December 18, 2019 by regentrude

[regentrude]

3 minutes ago, square_25 said:

I think if one is just doing it purely for information, that sounds right. If there’s a program to get into, that feels different.

If it is a true gifted program, it will be designed for children who naturally have an IQ above the cutoff, and a child who only got in because of being coached would flounder.

If it is a program where a child with an IQ below the cutoff is successful, it's not worth it as a "gifted" program. 

Edited December 18, 2019 by regentrude

[Luypie]

I strongly believe my ds has ADHD, but he masks it pretty well with quirky jokes. He is currently in French immersion program, which offers some degree of enrichment already. (We don’t speak French at home.) I wonder if learning French is more practical and useful than being in a gifted program. This gifted program accepts top 20-25 students and is very competitive to get in. Last year someone who scored 99 percentile didn’t make it. My DS scored pretty high on COGAT, but I don’t know if this will translate into high score on WSIC-V. I Haven’t decided if I want him to go to gifted program. If he does get accepted, then at least he has one more option to consider. He will be the one who makes the call. 

Edited December 18, 2019 by Luypie

[ktgrok]

I had no idea there were prep books for IQ tests!

[Frances]

On 12/17/2019 at 7:23 PM, Luypie said:

I strongly believe my ds has ADHD, but he masks it pretty well with quirky jokes. He is currently in French immersion program, which offers some degree of enrichment already. (We don’t speak French at home.) I wonder if learning French is more practical and useful than being in a gifted program. This gifted program accepts top 20-25 students and is very competitive to get in. Last year someone who scored 99 percentile didn’t make it. My DS scored pretty high on COGAT, but I don’t know if this will translate into high score on WSIC-V. I Haven’t decided if I want him to go to gifted program. If he does get accepted, then at least he has one more option to consider. He will be the one who makes the call. 

I would absolutely choose language immersion over a gifted program, although French would not be my choice for a second language. Here in the US we are so behind in giving children the gift of a second language. From everything I’ve heard about most gifted programs, it’s hard for me to imagine one that would be more beneficial than a language immersion program which leads to fluency.

Edited December 30, 2019 by Frances

[kbutton]

On 12/17/2019 at 10:23 PM, Luypie said:

This gifted program accepts top 20-25 students and is very competitive to get in. Last year someone who scored 99 percentile didn’t make it. 

They are likely looking at more than just the WISC V score, or they are using small discrepancies in scores to pick winners and losers, which is not necessarily something you can control. Do they have an application with additional questions that indicate if they are looking for a certain kind of gifted kid? I bet they do. There are a lot of different kinds of gifted programs with different goals and different kinds of kids they attract or desire to attract. He could get in and then hate it because it's not a good fit, and then you've done test prep for nothing.

My answer is no to the test prep. While I know that some 2e kids have crazy IQ scores that don't show their true abilities, I generally agree with regentrude's thoughts on the matter about the program not being a good fit if you need test prep to qualify. Even that qualification about 2e kids and testing, not all programs are designed for 2e kids' needs, so her take is really spot on when speaking of a competitive program.

We opted out of applying to a competitive program my son qualified to apply for because we realized as we were looking at the application and its questions, they probably didn't want my kind of kid! 

Neither of my kids have studied for the WISC, and there scores have seemed to capture their true abilities when taken as a whole over time (they've been tested at multiple ages). They are 2e, and we can see patterns where actual remediation of a problem (for example, fixing eye convergence problems) has resulted in a higher score, but that remediation was nothing at all like test prep. 

[kiwik]

On 12/18/2019 at 2:35 PM, regentrude said:

If it is a true gifted program, it will be designed for children who naturally have an IQ above the cutoff, and a child who only got in because of being coached would flounder.

If it is a program where a child with an IQ below the cutoff is successful, it's not worth it as a "gifted" program. 

From what I have read few programmes are for truly gifted kids.  Most are aimed at bright well behaved kids, bright kids who have been coached or mildly gifted kids.

 

No you shouldn't get him to practice. For prep sleep and food plus explaining to him the tests are to see how he thinks.  But everyone else probably is prepping.  I suspect it will only make s difference to kids around the cut off score.

[Jackie]

It goes against everything I believe, but yes, in your case I would do test prep. Normally, testing is simply to get a measurement, and the knowledge that comes with that measurement. However, these gifted programs can be extremely competitive to get into, and test prep is the norm. Your child will be at a disadvantage without it.

Keep in mind two things: test prep will only affect a WISC score by a few points, and the knowledge that *you* gain from the results will be skewed by the prep.

[Arcadia]

On 12/17/2019 at 10:20 AM, Luypie said:

I asked the psychologist about preps. She said it's her job to do the test and my job is to feed him and let him sleep well. My friend has her both kids in gifted program and she highly recommends to review the workbook beforehand.

 

14 hours ago, Jackie said:

Keep in mind two things: test prep will only affect a WISC score by a few points, and the knowledge that *you* gain from the results will be skewed by the prep.

There is also the issue that if a child says the tests looks familiar and described the test prep he did, would the psychologist have to put that down in her report? 

My kids tester put down that my family is multilingual for family background which at that time I thought was irrelevant since my kids main language is English. However it did make sense later because it did give a more complete picture/profile since we (parents) speak three other languages and kids learn German, making that four other languages they were exposed to in their daily life at time of testing.