All 1st grade students in Fairfax County Public Schools and certain students in grades 3-7 are tested with Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test (NNAT), to measure academic aptitude and be placed in Level 4 Advanced Academic Programs (formerly Gifted and Talented Program)
In Loudoun County, all second graders are tested with CogAt and NNAT 3 Level D for placement in FUTURA or SPECTRUM (gifted program).
Take the diagnostic test and get an overview of your child’s skills.
See the NNAT Comprehensive Schedule
Enrich your child’s reading and writing. Learn about our Creative and Critical Thinking Skills and add them to your child’s AAP portfolio.
Items to Address in 1st Grade (Fairfax County Public Schools) in preparation for NNAT and Level 4 Gifted Screening:
- Pattern Completion.
Students are shown a design and asked to identify which portion is missing. In order to reach the answer, the child must conceptually extend the given pattern.
- Reasoning by Analogy. Students are expected to recognize relationships between various geometric shapes. To determine which answer choice is correct, the student must determine how the geomteric objects change as one moves across the rows and down the columns of the design. Reasoning by analogy questions require that the student pay careful attention to the details of the design and work with more than one dimension (shape and shading) simulatenously.
- Serial Reasoning. These type of questions require students to recognize a sequence of shapes and identify the image that completes the pattern by examining how the series of shapes change across the rows and down the columns of the matrix. The direction in which you examine the question should depend on where you can most easily visualize the relationship.
- Critical and Creative Thinking Lessons. This portion is unique to Young Scholars Circle. Level 4 AAP Candidates need to have some creative and critical thinking output in their credentials in addition to high scores in FxAT and NNAT. These are lessons that are open-ended to allow for children’s creative thinking.
What the Course Covers: Pattern completion determines the child’s ability to complete a missing part which is hidden behind a given picture, for grades K to 1. Grades 2 to 5 also have a pattern completion portion, on the test. The analogy section determines the child’s ability to determine how each object, in a series of picture changes, and is being modified, for grades K to 1. Grades 2 to 5 also has an analogy portion, on the test. Serial reasoning and spatial visualization are in the grade 2 to 5 tests.

Take the diagnostic test and get an overview of your child’s skills.
See the NNAT Comprehensive Schedule
Enrich your child’s reading and writing. Learn about our Creative and Critical Thinking Skills and add them to your child’s AAP portfolio.