Learning and Life Skills

What skills are assessed by the Otis-Lennon School Abilities Test (OLSAT)?

Part 2 in our series - How parents can put to use their child's scores from the Otis-Lennon School Ability Test (OLSAT). 

In Part 1, I discussed that parents can, indeed, help their children build and strength cognitive skills assessed on the OLSAT and encouraged you to request a detailed score report from your school.  Don't be satisfied with just the overall composite score and an indication of whether your child qualified or didn't qualify for the gifted-talented program.  Get the detailed scores by subsection - or cluster/item. 

What are the Cluster/Item Types on the OLSAT?

Depending on the age/grade of your child, the item cluster and item types will differ.  Refer to this table to see the make-up of the assessment by grade: (click on the image to see if full-size)

 

 

Notice how the skillsets being assessed change once a child reaches 3rd grade - moving from a heavy dependence on figure-based reasoning to more verbal-based reasoning tasks. Notice also that students are not assessed for quantitative reasoning until 3rd grade, as well.  This is the point at which children are thought capable of doing deeper types of reasoning, have developed a more extensive vocabulary and a greater facility with numbers.  Inferential reasoning is not assessed until the 4th grade and beyond.  All of the picture-based reasoning tasks are dropped by 3rd grade, with figural classification eliminated from 4th grade and up.

Great advice from Geekwire - 7 steps to raise a geek child

Is "geek" the new sexy?  Not sure about that assertion, but it is fun to think about the need and method for passing on the 'geek' culture to our children. Frank Catalano (Geekwire blogger) shares his 7 tips for raising 'geeklets' - children of geek parents. 

His top 7 tips:

1. Let your child fail.
2. Expose him/her to fine art.
3. Expose your child to Star Wars.
4. Let him/her see you reading for pleasure.
5. Encourage them to tinker/hack or excessively explore.
6. Volunteer in elementary school.
7. Promote face time.

While the premise is fun, the points are dead on.  Reader comments are worth examining, as well. 

Read the post here.

For our geeklet, our family time was playing multi-user Age of Empires games.  Unfortunately, he laughs at Star Wars preferring instead Matrix, and the most recently Inception.  Mindcraft has given way to League of Legions, and facetime is via Skype with individuals around the world.  Soon to head off to engineering school - wants to build 'stuff'.

 It is a new way of growing up and growing community.  It will be exciting to watch what these world-wide collaborators achieve in the next 25-50 years.  

Are you a parent of a geeklet?  What elements of geek culture/lifestyle are you passing on?  

How parents can put to use scores from the Otis Lennon School Ability Test (OLSAT) (1)

Whether a child gains access to gifted and talented programs or not, results from the OLSAT (Otis-Lennon School Ability Test) assessment provide parents with a wealth of information they can use for the benefit of their children...if they are willing to engage.

The OLSAT helps us understand student learning abilities

Pearson Education, in their pamphlet - OLSAT - Assessing the Abilities That Relate To Success In School -  states: “... these tests have enabled educators to understand better the attributes that students bring to the task of learning.” 

 

Engaged parents can make a difference

So, what about us parents?  Couldn’t parents also gain some understanding about the unique potential of children by understanding the test results?  Is it possible that parents could engage thier children in activities that enhance a child’s cognitive abilities said to: “..relate to a student’s ability to learn in school.”  And, wouldn’t that be a good thing?  I say ‘yes’, emphatically!

The first step is  to request a detailed report of the test results from your child’s teacher or school test administrator.  Request results reporting scores by cluster and item type.  Then, ask lots of questions and be sure to read the rest of this series.  

Reasoning skills can be taught... even by parents!

Again, quoting from the OLSAT pamphlet: “Tasks such as detecting likenesses and differences, recalling words and numbers, defining words, following directions, classifying, establishing sequence, solving arithmetic problems, and completing analogies are included in OLSAT since they have been shown to be valid measures of an individual's ability to reason logically.”

Can parents make a difference in improving a child’s ability in these areas?  Yes.  Look at the Building Thinking Skills resources matched to your child's grade.

Does it make a difference in school success?  Yes.  

Would you like to understand more about your child and then take action based on this information?   

Next post - breaking it down - what are the cognitive skills on the OLSAT?

Then... how can parents work with their children to improve specific skills?

 

---

In the meantime, be sure to check out these related posts about the OLSAT - Otis-Lennon School Ability Test:

---

Resources to help your child with the OLSAT:

Find resources on our website: ThinkingToLearn.com

Or, use the information we have made available about the OLSAT assessment and resources for use by parents, tutors and teachers. 

Questions, suggestions?  Be sure to share your comments...

 

Recognizing Spatial Intelligence a necessity for talent assessment

 
Ninety years ago, Stanford psychologist Lewis Terman began an ambitious search for the brightest kids in California, administering IQ tests to several thousand of children across the state. Those scoring above an IQ of 135 (approximately the top 1 percent of scores) were tracked for further study. There were two young boys, Luis Alvarez and William Shockley, who were among the many who took Terman’s tests but missed the cutoff score. Despite their exclusion from a study of young “geniuses,” both went on to study physics, earn PhDs, and win the Nobel prize. 

via www.scientificamerican.com

Just as many young people who have grown up on farms, handling equipment and solving various and sundry problems that arise as they complete their chores, have gone on to be successful engineers.  Their abilities were developed and enhanced through their daily work with objects and the mechanics of equipment used on the farm.  These skills, while not included in 'gifted' testing, are spot on in terms of 21 century skills and science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).   Another testament to the futility of determining the futures of our children based on a 'one-point-in-time' assessment. 

Parents must take the bull by the horns and engage their children in learning and developing skills that will serve them for a lifetime - regardless of the specialized programs the school systems will permit or not permit them to participate in.

Find resources for developing creativity, problem solving, critical reading and reasoning skills through my website: ThinkingToLearn.com. 

 

 

 

 

Smart Kids: Why Do Schools Stigmatize “Gifted Children”?

Being smart has never been easy, especially in the modern world of public education. Since the Soviet Sputnik ratcheted- up the Cold War in the 1950s, school systems have attempted to respond with school programs for “gifted children” supposedly aimed at re-asserting North American brain power. After 1958, bright kids were suddenly identified as “gifted” and hothoused in special segregated classes. Yet, since that time, bright kids, by whatever  name – “egghead,” “browner,” or “nerd”” – have not been very well served by public education.

via educhatter.wordpress.com

Round and round the discussion goes, repeating the same unfortunate stereotypes of parents of gifted/high-ability children -  that they are middle-class, helicopter parents with nothing better to do than to over-stress over their child's education and opportunities (read the post comments.)

If we want to change the discussion on gifted education, we will first have to change this society's inherent problem with jealousy and generalizations.  Dismissing parents of truly gifted children only leaves them with fewer advocates in a process that is fraught with difficulty.  Hence, why so many who are either economically able, or sacrificially inclined will homeschool, charter school, and private school their children - anything rather than sign them up for the factory-driven public education system, which too often appears bent on shaping them to their liking instead of freeing them to exercise their abilities. 

Post a comment here if you are fed up with the same-old discussions with little resulting change....