<p>How do you make this conversion. My son go a raw score of 57 in the standard raven progressive matrices. I think it’s high and he should be smart but he is trailing in every subject at school. I am trying understand him and decide what to do with him… Please help.</p>
<p>Since the Raven is standardized, you would need to find some one with an administrator’s manual which I don’t currently have. You would then use a chart using the child’s raw score and their current age including years and months. That would convert it. Who administered the test? They should be able to give you this information.</p>
<p>Thank you very much Teach2005. His school gave this test to all the kids at the end of 2nd grade. (He was 7.5 yr old) The test id him as “Gifted & Talented”, in what, certaintly not in school! I am trying to decide if I should apply him to the Gifted & talented program. With a barely “on grade” on acadamic I don’t know if he’d be accepted. And if he is, can he handle it?? Suggestions, any wise or experience beings???</p>
<p>I am a gifted teacher which is why I’m pretty familiar with the Ravens. Whole grade screening using the Ravens is pretty common. It is usually followed up with an individualized IQ test for kids who score at a certain cutoff point on the Ravens (90th percentile or 85th percentile or above depending on the district). The screening is usually just the first step in the process. Intelligence and academic performance don’t always go hand in hand (unfortunately). If the IQ test has been administered and your child qualified but there are academic issues, I would talk to a couple of people. First, I would talk to his/her classroom teacher to get an idea of the teacher’s perspective of the child’s readiness for the program. Gifted classes usually require being out of class for a few hours a week. If you are still concerned try contacting the gifted coordinator for your district to express your concerns. The coordinator could talk to you about what would be best for the child. Also, if the IQ score comes back really high, but achievement is much lower, it could indicate a problem. Some gifted kids also have learning disabilities and they are sometimes hard to catch because their reasoning skills allow them to “get by” in school.</p>
<p>I know absolutely nothing about “Raven” but have lots of personal experience with 2 sons, one “highly” gifted and one “profoundly” gifted.
Teach2005, please don’t take my comments personally, but I’m probably going to offend you anyway.</p>
<p>My experience tells me that your son is bored to tears with school, and could care less. That is your son’s “problem” as Teach2005 put it–he is smart and no doubt has mastered the material, probably a couple of years ago. I highly recommend Dr. Sylvia Rimm’s books–she’s a first rate psychologist and a bona fide expert on gifted underachievement. You can find her general audience books at your local library. </p>
<p>You need to adopt some urgency, Gregossi, for several reasons. The one that is most important to your son is that his situation at school is stifling his love for learning. This may result in behavioral problems which the school will no doubt want treated with drugs. This is VERY common with boys, and very dangerous. </p>
<p>There is IMO no such thing as a good gifted program based on pull-outs. What happens when schools adopt this is they make the student do the work from the “gifted” class, and all the regular busy work too. This is nightmarish punishment for children, and they learn to hide their talents. If your school system’s gifted program doesn’t encourage students to go as far and as fast as possible, if it doesn’t teach the kids how to learn whatever they want, then it isn’t of much use.</p>
<p>If you choose to consult with the classroom teacher and the “gifted coordinator” remember they have a vested interest in promoting their own so-called expertise and their own programs. Intelligence and academic performance ALWAYS go hand-in-hand provided that the measurement of academic performance isn’t defined in terms of mediocrity.</p>
<p>YOU are the one who cares about your child. YOU are the one who knows what is best for your child. The so-called experts are going to tell you that what they offer is best, and they will make your son fit it, or they will just say that he has a behavior problem. If you are Mom, do NOT go into any meeting without Dad or another significant male being there, because they will just try to steamroll you.</p>
<p>Consider home schooling or private school. Soon.</p>
<p>Thank you wyogal for your thoughts. I agree with almost everything you said. How old are sons and what was your strategies with school? I am looking into getting mine into a private school or moving to an area which offers more choices or flexibilites in education. I find that incredible that some of the school are so hard to get in even at ES level! I applied him for the magnet program.His teacher told me that she highly recoment him for it and appologize for not being able to meet his needs. He has more than acadamic problems. He’s very socially isolated. He spends most of his time in the basement building all kinds of gadgets. He needs a change. I hope I get an answer soon if he would be accepted into the magnet program. If not, Ineed to make moves on contigencies. I STILL NEED TO KNOW WHAT PERCENTILE HE IS IN THE RAVEN SCORE because some school state a minimum 95% or above for admission… How do you make this conversion from raw scores? HELP>>></p>
<p>Check this page</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/[/url]”>http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/</a></p>
<p>Okay, so I tried REALLY hard not to be offended by the comments, but I would be lying if I said they didn’t hurt. =) However, they didn’t hurt me personally. They hurt because of the criticism of the teachers and/or gifted administrator. I am a former participant in the gifted program as a child and as an adult an avid student of gifted kids. I have both a master’s and a Ph.D. in gifted education. I have also published in national journals on the topic of gifted ed and teach at the university level part time on gifted education. It is completely my passion. Therefore it was hard for me to see that parents perceive gifted teachers and administrators as trying to “push” their program. I ALWAYS want what is best for the individual child. That may be our program or it may be homeschooling or it may be a special school for the gifted. The child is always the first priority. </p>
<p>The reason I was hesitant to suggest boredom is because the parent did not indicate how high the child scored on the RAVENs. It was only explained that the academic expectations weren’t being met which is why I suggested that there may be a problem. I also stated that intelligence and academic performance don’t always go hand in hand because they don’t. There is a third factor present which is motivation. It doesn’t matter how high your IQ is…if you are not motivated to learn then you will not achieve. (Refer to Joseph Renzulli…a leading researcher in gifted ed…and his definition of giftedness which includes task commitment as one of the components). On the other hand, a child who has a 125 and is not classified as gifted may have a huge amount of motivation and will achieve at extremely high levels. The key is to find that motivation. </p>
<p>I also argue that pull-out programs in elementary schools can be successful. My older sister and I both participated in a pull out program for 5 hours a week in elementary school and it was our favorite time of the week. In fact, my experience in the pull out program is why I chose to become a teacher of the gifted. However, states all have different laws regarding gifted education and some provide more services than others. Therefore, knowing what state we are dealing with would be helpful as well. </p>
<p>Finally, to re-answer the original question about interpreting the RAVENs data, I will again state that you have to go to the conversion table based on age to get this information. The person who administered the test at the school should have this information. We give the SAGES (Screening Assessment for Gifted Elementary Students) at my school rather than the RAVENs so I don’t have the conversion table for raw scores to percentiles.</p>
<p>I assume this was administered at school. The name of the test administrator should be on the results sheet you received. If not, call your child’s guidance counselor at school and find out and ask for the phone number. Then call this person as they will be able to answer all of your questions.</p>
<p>Before you have your child enrolled in Harvard on the basis of his Raven’s score, heed teach2005. The Raven’s is a non-verbal reasoning task. It is not as well correlated to academic performance as other IQ measures as it does not measure verbal skills. Since you have concerns and questions get a complete evaluation of your son’s strengths and weaknesses and then enter the debate about gifted programs.</p>
<p>Oh Teach, please don’t be mad:
That’s because you think everyone else is as good a person as you are! Believe me, that’s not the case. When your son has mastered the 6th grade math curriculum in first grade, and the district math instruction coordinator says to you “Don’t worry, we’ll make sure he won’t be way over grade level by the end of 3rd grade” THEN you will come to realize that you are the exception, not the rule. (And this was a top 10 nationally ranked school district, if you want to know which one then PM me).</p>
<p>
OK, I’ll modify my objection somewhat. All things being equal I still believe that intelligence and academic performance DO go hand in hand. Naturally a kid growing up in a crack house won’t achieve in school, but that’s not really what we’re talking about. We’re talking about children with way-above-average intelligence in a government school system where they have reasonably attentive parents who care about their kids future. I admit freely that I have no knowledge of Joseph Renzulli, but I know a whole lot about Maria Montessori, who achieved success far beyond anyone since with students of all intelligence levels and the poorest backgrounds.</p>
<p>
Of course it was your favorite–you were bored to tears by the rest of it. It’s what kept you from acting up and being a “behavioral problem” to the teacher. All of us who suffered through the standard public ed program found a way to cope. I’m so ancient that “gifted” wasn’t a word :D, but I had a couple of elementary teachers who were also “gifted” and gave me a way to cope–like writing book reports on Shakespeare plays in 5th grade. Like allowing a project on ancient Mayan culture instead of the standard 6th grade social studies “take a country in South America and copy the encyclopaedia” report. Like encouraging a demonstration of Newton’s 3rd law as a substitution for the project required by the almost-nonexistant science curriculum. Even with the encouragement I got from a few exceptional teachers, I wound up clinging to the rafts that would save me from the crushing boredom of mediocrity from 7th grade on. The problem was that because I had to do that by myself, I sacrificed all the math and science (there’s a feminist argument in there but that’s for another time 
).</p>
<p>My message to you is that if what you say is true, you are exceptional. You have the scholarly background, but I have the real world experience. How 'bout meeting in the PM world?</p>
<p>Okay, so we’ll officially call a truce. I like to think I’m a good teacher, but I am also optimistic that I’m not the ONLY good one out there. (I happen to know 9 other gifted teachers in my district that I would be happy to back.) Since I’ve had my share of bum teachers in life, though, I know they are out and about and part of all schools and all subject areas. </p>
<p>As for what I say being true, believe me that I have three degrees on my wall and many stressful years of graduate school to back up my claims. Sometimes I think there might be Post Traumatic Stress Disorder resulting from major professors and needing to write too many papers simultaneously. You know you have this when you are no longer in school and still wake up in the middle of the night in a panic because you think you have a paper or research project to finish.</p>
<p>how can i convert the percentiles of SPM and CPM into IQ… the raw scores fall far below the 5th percentile so how can i get the actual percentile for that score?</p>
<p>i have also read about the conversion tables in many researches…where am i supposed to get those…i hope to get some help soon as its urgent…</p>
<p>You need to have the manual to convert percentiles to standard scores (I think that is how the Ravens calculates IQ). Scores below the 5th percentile or above the 95th percentile are certainly significant but translating them to an IQ score would not be equivalent to an IQ obtained from a individually administered IQ test which assesses verbal and nonverbal abilities.</p>
<p>thanks Mol10e … yes i have the manual but cannot figure out the way to do so… have administered the test to MR children and their score falls far below that of the 5th percentile so am i supposed to take the percentile roughly i.e if the score is 8 i should take a rough estimate of 2nd percentile and calculate the IQ… im totally stuck…</p>
<p>Hi, gregossi. As I understand it, the Raven Progressive Matrix test consists of a total of 60 patterns to analyze. Each pattern is presented in a grid (typically 3 by 3), with one of the entries left blank. The student has to identify it.</p>
<p>Since the RPM test is often given to older children (11 or 12) and to the elderly, and since adults are challenged by some of the patterns (see the book Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell and online discussion), my best guess is that a score of 57 by a 7.5 year old is off-the-charts high. </p>
<p>I am not a psychologist, and do not have access to the manual, so I can’t confirm that for you, but I do think this is an extraordinary score.</p>
<p>The RPM test covers nonverbal abilities only (visualization, pattern-perception, spatial relations). Therefore, it can’t really be converted into an IQ. The schools you mention that require a score at the 95th percentile or above–do they accept RPM scores to fulfill that requirement? If so, they could tell you what the raw score to percentile conversion is. (At a guess, it is well into the 99th percentile, considering your son’s age.)</p>
<p>There are many things that could be causing difficulties for him in school (aside from boredom). Perhaps his level of small muscle control makes writing difficult for him. Perhaps he is a high-energy child, who has difficulty sitting still. Some schools permit boys to roam around the classroom, or move around while they are learning, to facilitate different learning styles. I wouldn’t completely rule out dyslexia, because I think that a high score on the RPM indicates an ability to grasp patterns as a whole. The same mental approach that makes the RPM easy might also make it hard to remember the differences between b, d, p, and q, or between saw and was. If there is an indication of dyslexia, there are some special programs that are good from what I’ve heard–for example, the Orton Gillingham method is one, but there are others.</p>
<p>The web site Hoagies Gifted may have some information of use to you. Please do not be dismayed by some of the negative experiences of gifted children in public schools that are reported on that site. Some of them come from Australia/New Zealand and are not applicable in the U.S. I suggest that you ignore the cynical posts, and look for things that would be useful for your child.</p>
<p>Incidentally, there is a great card game called SET, where the goal is to identify groups of cards that are all alike in some feature(s) or all different in some features(s). My now-adult child, whom I refer to on CC as QMP, used to clobber me at this game. Your son might be able to out-score you, too.</p>
<p>I would also caution you against thinking that private school is going to solve all of your problems. If, for example, your child turns out to be 2E–that is, he has a learning disability in addition to a very high IQ–many private schools will be unable to address his needs. Private schools, as well as “top” public schools, often take the “all our children are gifted” tack in order to avoid having to provide additional programming or flexibility.</p>
<p>It is also true that there are plenty of gifted kids who do just fine in public or private schools, with some flexibility on the part of the educators. Our school system had a multi-pronged gifted program in elementary school: kids were “clustered” with a few others, there were two pull-outs per week each for math and language (A kid could be identified in either or both.), and the G&T staff was available to consult with the regular classroom teachers on meeting needs through differentiation. Certainly this was not perfect, and it tended to be focused more on enrichment than acceleration much of the time, but it was a fairly good program.</p>
<p>Hoagies is a great resource, but don’t forget that most people tend to generalize based on their own limited experience: you will find people who confidently state that NO public school can possibly be good, etc, etc.</p>
<p>Sorry I can’t help you with the RAVENS scoring issue.</p>
<p>I concur with Wyogal. Teach 2005, with all due respect to your speciality of gifted education, few gifted teachers have yet had much in the way of training in how the needs of the gifted are different (although this is slowly changing). In addition, the highly gifted are an entirely different breed, as far removed from garden-variety gifted as the gifted are from average students.</p>
<p>My first son took the RAVEN at age 5.5 and got a perfect score – something so rare that it is not (or at least was not) even included in the test’s norms tables; a company rep said the score was impossible for a kid his age and implied that his psychologist (a seasoned veteran with the highly gifted) had made an error. </p>
<p>Gregossi, it is quite possible that your child is simply daydreaming most of the day away in school because the pace is so slow it’s like trying to feed an elephant one blade of grass at a time. For reference, my son went through nearly the entire elementary school math curriculum – two-digit addition through division of fractions – in about 6 months at age 5. We had him in school for a year – he skipped kindergarten and 1st, went directly into 2nd, was promoted to 3rd at mid-year. We ended up home-schooling him thereafter and re-inserted him into the school system in high school, initially half-time at age 9 (which took considerable effort and months of talks).</p>