Test preparation has long been a big business catering to students taking SATs and admissions exams for law, medical and other graduate schools. But the new clientele is quite a bit younger: 3- and 4-year-olds whose parents hope that a little assistance — costing upward of $1,000 for several sessions — will help them win coveted spots in the city’s gifted and talented public kindergarten classes.

Read the entire article here:  via www.nytimes.com

Thinking To Learn is mentioned in this article in the New York Time discussing how parents of young children are accessing resources to prep for high-stakes testing in New York City.

Parents need to understand how to spend time with their children in ways that are meaningful.  My position has been that teaching and developing a child's thinking skills is one of the ways to spend that time.  Those skills are being assessed on reasoning tests like the OLSAT (Otis-Lennon School Abilities Test) with high-stakes implications - access to gifted programs where curriculum and learning are differentiated to meet the intellectual needs of the child.  With the economic conditions what they are, and private school tuition what it is, parents are more keen on the idea of enrolling children in public schools, but hoping to have them placed in the gifted and talented programs.  

Regardless of whether a child earns a qualifying score for acceptance into these special programs, parents need to attend to the importance of developing their child's reasoning and problem-solving skills.  The resources we recommend to parents at Thinking To Learn, imbed critical thinking skills in the content, or teach those skills directly.  I recommend them to all parents, regardless of your child's ability.  These skills, at their core, are learning skills important for life.

as the information they disclose may be used by college admissions officers and future employers to evaluate them. Kaplan, in a survey of medical students,  found that many students 'friend' college admissions officers or leave pages open to inspection by potential employers.  Important to note is that college admissions officers are using that information. 

My advice for parents is to review your child's privacy settings and friend list. Help them understand why they should not be friends with a college or college admission officer.

Here's the link to Kaplan's site and article  www.kaplan.com.

The Otis-Lennon School Ability Test (OLSAT) is designed as a group assessment measuring certain cognitive skills deemed important for successful learning.   These skills are higher order reasoning skills involving analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.  The skills permit student learners to better understand the content they are learning, to better recall what they understand, to be more logical, to perceive relationships, attend to details, and to form generalizations and apply them to new content.

The OLSAT is used to identify students in need of special services within the school system, such as identifying students eligible to receive gifted and talented programming.

A review of information available on school websites gives one the impression that there is little standardization as to which scores are used to determine qualification into talented and gifted programs.  The target value or qualifying score varies among programs and states. 

Parents may receive feedback which refers to these scores:

The SAI score.  The School Ability Index is perhaps the most frequently referenced score when discussing the OLSAT and entrance into gifted programs. The SAI measures one student in relation to other students of the same age. Some indicate that this score is the ‘same’ as an intelligence score. Others indicate that it is 'similar' to what has been called an intelligence score.  There isn't enough space here to discuss the debate over measures of intelligence. I'll save that for another series of posts.

The publisher of the test describes the score in this way: “The SAI, with a mean of 100 and standard deviation of 16, is an easy-to-understand indicator of a student’s standing relative to his or her age peers.”  The ceiling or highest score for the OLSAT is 150.  The average score is 100.  It's the 50 points in between that make all the difference.

The score of 100 is the mean or average.  A mean, by definition, is the center of the scores in a set of scores - or the point where the largest number of scores occur.  The distance from that average point, or center, is described using the term – standard deviation. (For those who want to learn more about these statistical terms, consult this link to Wikipedia.)

The further away from the mean or average, the smaller the number of occurrences or the less-average the score. The direction of the score, below or above the mean, determines the special services needed.

Most frequently, the term ‘gifted’ is assigned to a student whose score falls 2 or more standard deviations above the mean. For the OLSAT, this translates into a score of 132 or higher.

Within the nation, we could expect student scores to occur in the following ranges:

Above 132 …. 2% of the population

116-132 ….. 14% of the population

84-116 …. 68% of the population

68-84 ….. 14% of the population

Below 68 …. 2% of the population

When schools set their benchmark or target numbers, I found most set at either 130 or 132, looking to identify the top 2-3% of the population of students who have taken the OLSAT. I did find several school districts with qualifying scores set at 127.

Important for parents to understand is that a child scoring a 129, missing the cutoff point by just one point, does not need just one more right answer in order to move the score to 130. because the one point difference in SAI score represents several wrong answers. 

Percentile Rankings: Oftentimes parents are given scores, that represent the Percentile Rankings, as the qualifying percentile.  Percentile rankings correspond to the SAI scores. An SAI score of 100 translates into a percentile ranking of 50%.  In the case of gifted program access, the percentile score qualifying a student for gifted placement is oftentimes set to 98% or above. A percentile ranking between 95% and 98% oftentimes qualifies a student for a more in-depth look, and a consideration of other information - achievement testing and/or teacher referrals.

In the case of New York City schools, which has standardized gifted testing on the Otis-Lennon test, students are placed in gifted programming based on a blending of scores from the OLSAT and the Bracken School Readiness Assessment (BSRA). The OLSAT score is weighted 75%, with the BSRA weighted 25%. These two scores, once weighted, are added together.  A result of 95% or above qualifies the student for access to gifted programming. 

Practice and skill building for the OLSAT:

Our online store and information center has references and resources parents and tutors can use with their students to practice and build many of the skills assessed on the Otis-Lennon School Abilitities test.  Access our website at Thinking To Learn - and specific information about the OLSAT and  BSRA resources.

What other resources have you found to help your child prepare for these assessments?  What other questions do you have about the OLSAT?