The Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT) is a tool used to measure cognitive development among children between grades K-12. According to Erica Pollert, “More and more schools are realizing that there is a need for special classes when educating the gifted population. Before they can make any decisions on what this should look like, schools need to decide whom the gifted are.” That is where CogAT comes in. This test is often used to identify gifted children who could then be granted admissions into the several gifted and talented programs across the United States.
If you asked any parent whether their kid was gifted, their obvious answer will be yes. But are all kids gifted in the manner which is being purported? – No. The CogAT therefore serves as a way of proving that the kids admitted to these specialized programs are truly gifted and not just acclaimed to be gifted. For parents with gifted kids, allowing your kid to take the CogAT test is a really brilliant investment. Even for parents who may not necessarily consider their kids to be gifted, submitting them for the test may reveal certain hidden facts about your child’s learning abilities. Whichever way you look at it, there seems to be a true value in submitting your children for the CogAT. The following are a few reasons why you should have your child take it.
Indicator of Academic success
This test provides an assessment of reasoning skills that strongly relate to academic success. With its specialized tests, the CogAT seeks to probe the kid’s cognitive development, capacity to learn new tasks, and the way children attempt to solve problems. The interesting thing is that the abilities a child needs to succeed in kindergarten are the same abilities needed to succeed in college.
The following seven abilities of your child will be assessed in the CogAT test:
- Language: Your child’s ability to understand the words they hear and later read all day. It is also your child’s ability to use words orally and later in writing.
- Knowledge & Comprehension: Your child’s understanding of information, social standards of behavior, and common sense that kids your child’s age normally have.
- Memory: Your child’s ability to remember both visual and oral information learned in the last few seconds or in the past. It is also your child’s ability to do something with information just learned
- Math: Covers computational skills such as counting, adding, subtracting and high order mathematical sequencing such as patterning, ordering, classifying, and comparing.
- Visual Spatial Reasoning: Your child’s ability to reason and solve problems using pictures, images, diagrams, shapes, maps, and tables.
- Cognitive Skills: Are thinking abilities such as symbolic and abstract thinking
- Fine Motor Skills: Your child’s abilities to control their hands and fingers to make small movements like tying shoe laces, buttoning buttons, or writing with a pencil.
Admission into a Gifted and Talented Program
There are several gifted and talented programs across the United States that offer specialized education to students of various ages and grades.
These schools provide the benefit of:
- Tailored, Individualized Instruction. ..
- Boredom Prevention. …
- Post-Secondary Success. …
- Productivity…
- Safety and Understanding.
In order to enroll student’s in these programs you may want to have your child take the CogAT because most gifted programs require it.
Like many standardized tests, you can prepare your child for the CogAT yourself or enlist the professional help of a tutor with a proven record of success to help your child get ready to pass the test. eTutorWorld, an online test prep provider is an excellent example of a tutoring service that can get your child ready and confident to take the CogAT all from the comfort of your home. They offer CogAT practice Test with sufficient questions covering all the test parts.
