Woodcock - age vs. grade comparisons

Percentiles are really not what you should look at. Look at the standard scores. You hope they will go up each year. Any scores done last year can be figured with both age and grade equivalents, so don’t let them tell you that you can’t compare the scores. Tell them to refigure last years scores into age equivalents for you.

Janis

They can rerun the scores based on the grade equivalent, then you can compare this year’s with last years. For future, stay with age equivalent, as there are differences based on whether your child is old or young for grade level.

From what I read go with the percentage ranking. I had posted in “Parenting an LD Child” about my school going from the WWJ to WIAT test because teacher said they need to go to a new test every so often because they get use to it. I am concerned about comparing the two tests and how I can see if she progressed this year. My child looked as though she progressed over the past years when given grade equalivent scores but when you look at the percentage ranking it showed a drop in progress in some areas and only a little progress in others.Look in the “LD in Depth” and then in “assessment” it will explain in some articles about this and why to use percentage ranking instead.

nt

Go to LD In Depth at top of page and click then go to assessments. The first article listed.” Understanding Tests and Measurements for the Parent and Advocate”, is the gold standard for parents to understanding test scores. Read about Standard Scores as they are comparable from year to year for the same test. There is also a chart that gives %tile for Standard Scores.

Helen

Best bet is using standard scores.

I suggest using the age equivalent standard scores so you know where each child is functioning for their age. Sometimes grade equivalent is misleading if a child has been retained or started school at a later age due to medical conditions or other reasons.
ilene

Sometimes standard scores are only meaningful unto themselves unless you look up average and standard deviation, etc (when a standard score is “507” one year and “515” the next…).
I would ever so respectfully ask them to take the incredible trouble of finding the blooming manual, looking at the raw scores and figuring out the percentiles by age or grade, whichever it was done last year. The actual tests — or at least something with the raw scores — should certainly be on file. I would have a little troiuble not sounding caustic and would have to refrain from asking if there were some reason they did not wish the scores to be compared. (Or I’d wait a day until the PMS passed and do a lot better :)) I’d offer to wait while they got those materials or offer to do it for them - it’s simply a case of reading tables. :!:

Janis,

Just curious. My daughter’s scores have gone up, but very little (a few pts.) Reading comprehension was the biggest gain in 1 year (6 pts). Thanks I believe to LMB & VV. However, most of her other scores have stayed constant.

Her evaluator told me she was “doing great”. She said the test gets harder and if she stays the same, she is actually increasing and/or not falling further behind.

Does this make sense?

You can go to the Riverside Publishing (makers of the WJ III) website and look at info. about interpretation; it is not just straightforward look at the numbers, sometimes increases in numerical value are not statistically significant; overall, age and grade equivalencies(the difference between 1st and 2nd grade level is not the same as between 8th and 9th grade level) are the least helpful values to compare. It really pays to every few yrs go to a professional who can interpret the info. for you, and recommend when and what tests could be helpful in the future. The WJIII is computer scored and it doesn’t take much effort to print out differing (standard scores, grade and age equivalencies) ways of looking at the results.

Grade equivalent scores are notoriously misunderstood— the easiest to understand explanation I’ve heard is that for example, if a 3rd grader scores 6.0 grade equivalent it means that s/he scored as well as the average beginning 6th grader would if that hypothetical 6th grader took the 3rd grade test— which would never happen! It does not mean that the 3rd grader is doing 6th grade work. Stick with standard scores and their corresponding percentiles.

Thanks for the info. She seems to be doing very well in school and the SS scores were what went up. In looking at her re-eval again, I noticed that she also increased from 93 t 107 in applied problems and 99 to 105 in Broad Math.

BTW, she was also put on ADD meds right before the 2nd testing so that may be part of the improvement.

Think of the scores within a range; most of the tests ss have a mean of 100, and a standard dev. of 15; if your child scores in the 90’s-110 that’s the average range regardless of whether the score has gone up or down a couple of points. I have posted in the past a computer spread sheet program that converts IQ scores into “expected” achievement; kids with IQs of 130 don’t have achievement scores of 130(they’re a bit lower), and kids with IQ scores of 80 have achievement scores a bit higher.

I have the academically gifted child who scores in the low (now somes me :0) ) average range. She may not be considered LD when the new reauthorization comes into effect.