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If your child has areas of particular strength or weakness then you may wish to adjust up or down a level.  If you'd like recommendations for your situation please email or phone with some information about your child and I'd be happy to make suggestions.

The CogAT is a test of reasoning skills.  It’s not like a spelling or a math test where if you know the words or the facts you can get 100% and there is little advantage is learning more difficult words or practicing more difficult math problems.  There is no defined curriculum for the CogAT.  An average child in first grade would not be expected to be able to answer the most difficult questions on the CogAT.  That's why the list below includes titles that are notionally for higher grades.  Gifted children, by definition, have cognitive abilties above those expected in the grade level they're in.

Building Thinking Skills Level 1 is our number one recommendation.  This is a Gr 2-3 product covering verbal and nonverbal reasoning.  The software covers the same skills, with the same examples, but the presentation is very different.  We suggest having a look at the sample activities provided and getting your child to try them.  If they have difficulty you may wish to get the software so that they can repeat the areas they find challenging until they master them (once you’ve written in the book it’s difficult to do the same exercise again).  If you are concerned about your child's ability to answer a pen and paper test then you may wish to purchase the book instead or in addition to the software.  There are questions in the book formatted very like those on the actual test.  Don’t expect your child to be able to provide written answers to the questions that are not presented in a multi-choice format.

The test will be administered orally with instructions and questions read to the children (they'll indicate their answers by shading a bubble under the picture they choose for each question).  Can You Find Me? is our number two recommendation.  It is a collection of logic riddles in different subject areas.  Your child listens to you reading the riddle and then identifies the correct picture.  It is great practice for the type of listening required during testing.  Your child will find some of the questions very simple.   This too is great practice for the test where many of the questions will be very simple.  Many gifted children enjoy finding creative answers to easy questions.  Your child needs to understand that the correct answer on a multiple choice test is the one that most people who know the correct answer would choose, not one they can dream up a justifcation for.

Other options for practicing listening skills are Mind Benders Warm Up (deductive logic) and Dr. Dooriddles A2 (associative reasoning).  These are designed to be done orally.  They are not illustrated and there will not be questions exactly like these on the test.  They are very helpful, particularly for a fluent reader who may not listen to instructions as carefully as they could, for practicing listening skills and learning that it is just as important to listen when the questions are easy as when they are hard – if you don’t hear the question you can’t answer it.  These are great titles to have in the car to read to your child at traffic lights to practice listening and thinking in less than perfect environments.