Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment First MAP test results

I also noticed when reading the document that they recommend that 1st graders continue with the MPG math test even if they score over 200, but they can be moved up to the MAP if they score highly on the reading test. I wonder why that is?

The transition document notes that reading development occurs more naturalistically: once a child is able to read proficiently, additional growth in comprehension and vocabulary takes place organically, through exposure to increasingly sophisticated text (often self-selected). There is no real qualitative difference between first grade reading instruction and third grade reading for a fluent reader. This continuity in content makes comparisons between the MPG and the 2-5 closer in reading.

From the transition document:

"We recommend that all first graders take MPG Mathematics, because they are not likely to have been introduced to a large portion of the content in the grades 2 – 5 Mathematics assessment."

Mathematics is more reliant on instruction and grade-specific content. The MAP MPG (K-2) does not include content from upper grades, so scoring very highly on the MPG simply means that a child performed as well as a child in a higher grade would have on primary grades material. It tells you nothing about how that child would do on fifth grade material (for example), because there was none on the test. The advisory states that a high score can be an indication that a child should be moved up only if they have also received instruction in higher grade content in mathematics. NWEA makes the assumption that leaving kindergarten students are extremely unlikely to have been exposed to grade 2 mathematics content. If you can make a case that your first grader has, then there this no obvious reason why a first grader scoring above 200 on the math MPG should not immediately be moved to the MAP 2-5.

I don't know much about this so my comments are speculative but I'm wondering if the lack of percentile on the summer test has something to to do with how they were normed. NWEA has very strict testing windows so they can compare all the kids nationally during a snapshot in time. Is it possible they didn't have enough data in this year's summer sample for that age group?

Another question is whether your child took the survey with goals on both tests or is it possible he took the survey in he first sitting and the survey with goals in the second sitting? Could that explain the difference in the scores?

The above comment is read what makes most sense to me. It's very important to nwea that they look at the semester as well as weeks of instruction. I haven't even seen summer norms.

Hi all, update on here. DS just finished his math MAP today and I was told he got a 230, pretty much the same as the first time. But this time DS told me about some of the questions and based on what he told me I'm pretty sure he didn't take the youngest test. He had trouble with one question that included exponents because he didn't know what a number to the power of 1 meant. He also said the test included fractions, decimals, and percents and specifically asked to learn to divide fractions because it was on the test and he doesn't know how to do it yet. There were some word problems he was confused about too. Overall he has been testing for days for an hour or so at a time and I was told he spent up to 20 minutes on some questions, so I'm guessing they were pretty challenging (he also is afraid to answer them wrong and has a very hard time with just guessing).

So, any idea which version of the test this was? Should I ask them to use the next test up at the parent teacher conference we have coming up? I know he had some growth over the past 6 months as he loves math and has learned quite a bit at home and hopefully school has taught him something as well. It seems pointless to me to keep giving him a test where he keeps scoring the same number regardless of actual progress. This time he completed the reading portion for the first time, but I don't get the results until the meeting. I'm really curious how he did as I have been worried about his reading lately.

Can you ask the school which MAP test they gave to your DS? I've done that when my DS took the MAP test in first grade because I had some questions on the scoring and acceleration based on the score. They told me it was the MAP K-1. They start to use the higher MAP test in 2nd grade.

That sounds very odd. The test normally should take an hour total. If it really took days for an hour at at a time that was a huge chunk of class time. Given that he didn't know all the material on top of that I definitely not go asking for the higher version of the MAP i.e. 6+.

The question I would be asking myself in your shoes was whether this is consistent with his performance elsewhere i.e. is this abnormal processing speed or a sign of something worth looking into.

Full confession: I started opting our kids out of MAP after 1st grade and have been perfectly happy ever since. If he's learning at home, I would trust your own judgement of progress. If very easy to interleave short formative assessments into learning activities that will produce a much more accurate picture of progress than any standardized test can produce.

I think it would be a good idea to tell him that if he can't figure out a question within a few minutes, move onto the next one. My daughter takes forever with these tests too and I have told the school to cancel the test if it's stressing her out or if she is taking too long.

It sounds like he's suffering from Analysis Paralysis, and going over questions too many times trying to figure out how to get one of the answers in the multiple choices. Tell him if he doesn't understand the question or hasn't learned the concept yet, guess and move on. The goal should be to figure out what he knows, and if he's getting some right by eliminating obviously wrong choices and then just getting lucky, the test isn't really measuring what he knows.

He's actually worried he will guess right when he doesn't know the answer because we told him the test is supposed to show what he doesn't know. So he figures that if he guesses and gets it right that means he is somehow cheating and/or messing up the test and he hates cheating/messing things up.

I know that he is solidly at mid 4th grade for mastered curriculum and beyond that in some areas like geometry and calculus (because the school is giving him pull out calculus, not because I'm teaching that). I'd say he has some areas where he is easily at 6th grade level and he has a great interest in and understanding of theoretical math ideas.

I'm mostly just wondering if I should ask if he can skip these tests or move to a higher test, and whether they are actually showing anything useful. DS is slow at everything in life and he misses a lot of class time just to take a test that shows no/negative growth since summer and I'm kinda wondering what the point is. It's not like I don't have a good idea where he is at. The school obviously knows he is really far ahead or they wouldn't be giving him a math pull out from a gifted class to do calculus with the math specialist.

Based on what everyone has said so far I'm leaning towards asking the school to allow him to skip the math portion and just take the reading test. I'm assuming that test will show useful results vs this one for DS.

It took us 2 years to get the school to move DS from MAP 2-5 to 6+.The reality was he should have been moved from PMAP in 1st grade to the 2-5. His 1st grade scores were in the 230's. In 2nd grade he started the 2-5 test. He started to take the 6+ in winter of 4th grade. At that point his math score was in the mid 250's.

He is now in 5th grade and we finally have a small math accommodation beyond the normal acceleration out district completes (7th grade algebra and 8th grade geometry). He is now taking online math and was placed in algebra I with 24% mastery before starting the lessons. He is finally happy about math!