I think Robin may have touched on this earlier, but I am thinking my child must have only been given part of the WJ. We have scores for Letter/word ID, passage Comp, Calc., Applied Problems, Dictation, writing samples (all SS above 100) but NO scores for things like memory for names, memory for sentences, visual matching, incomplete words, visual closure, picture vocabulary, analysis/ synthesis. I think it may have been Robin who told me that the new WJ has a Rapid Automatic Naming subtest as well, which I would like to see my daughter tested with. Are these other areas all opitonal subtests? I just can’t see why they would be omiting them since they tell so much about where a child’s real problems lie.
Janis
Hey there:)
What you have- if these are the only tests that were given- is the standard battery of the achievement test in reading, math and written language- just enough to give Broad Reading etc. I can’t tell whether it is from the WJ- revised (the older one) or the WJ III ( the new one). My guess is the older version however because the WJIII has fluency measures for all of these included in the standard battery and since it is alled scored on the computer (you can score the WJ-R by hand) you can’t get cluster scores without doing them. The WJIII does have a Rapid Naming subtest as well as a bunch of phonological awareness tests.
Query- if your scores are all 100 or better- that is solidly average and age appropriate and all that stuff and suggests that she is fine. Refresh my memory about why you are concerned?
Robin
Re: Hey there:)
She has an auditory processing disorder, extremely low language scores in relational and oral vocabulary, sentence imitation, phonemic analysis (TOLD), and low scores on Concepts and Directions, Word structure, Recalling sentences (CELF) and 4 more subtests were a 7 or 8, not great. She did well on the achievement tests early in the fall because it is easier than the reading she is having to do in the classroom. She can blend 3 letter words but gets frustrated with longer words. There is no fluency and no comprehension. Her school uses Saxon phonics which is good, but it is symbol to sound with a lot of rules that are hard for her to remember. The memory issues, I think, cause some of the difficulty. The audiologist says the problem is auditory integration.
If you are one of the PG users, her scores were Blending 86, Segmenting 83, Auditory Processing (phoneme manipulation) 30, Code Knowledge 76, and total score of 75. ( I did give the AP section a couple of months early, but it will still be low when I give it to her again, I’m sure.) So she is not doing horribly, she is just not quite keeping up. I just think these deficits will cause her problems later with no intervention. By the end of first grade, I would think she’d be behind in reading, except that I am going to try PG with her and she will be getting S/L 3 times per week.
She was given the WJ-R because the LD teacher said that she had the new WJ-III but had never given it before.
Thanks!
Janis
Re: WJ question
As a school psychologist, I am happy to answer questions from parents of students I evaluate. Perhaps we think we are being clear, but have not answered your questions completely. Or maybe you think of questions later. At any rate, going to the source with your questions about testing is my advice to you.
There is an “achievement” bunch of tests which are just that — what does the kid know — and another set that is more a potential test that correlates well with IQ testing. I really like having both — but many schools feel like it is redundant to give both the Cognitive tests and an IQ test, so they just do achievement ones.
Or, they may be using an older version (which is what I know about) of the test. It would be quite reasonable to request that they get with the century!