Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Help with Math Advocacy

We have spring teacher conferences in a few weeks and my DH and I are trying to come up with the best strategy to advocate for some differentiation in math for our DS7 or at least a broadening of the curriculum that he is learning in class in his homework.

About a month ago, our DS grade accelerated to 2nd grade. Our DS�s fall math MAP was 217 and his Broad Math on the WJIII was 147. So, right now, we are still really concerned about the math curriculum, especially the homework - everyone does the same sheet � it takes DS about 5 minutes to do and it is nothing but busy work. We don�t want to spend a ton of time on math home work, we just want what he is doing at home to be more appropriate for his math readiness.

How do we make the teachers understand his numbers (they don�t seem to) and realize what they mean in terms of his math ability and readiness level?

We have just "been there, done that" for our dd. We were told that the MAPS test is just a "snapshot" in the school year and that it is not an indicator of whether a child should be excelerated or assisted. So that would not support your concerns.

Deonne - See this link for what 217 in math on MAP equates to, in the context of another poster's question. http://giftedissues.davidsongifted....ch/true/Re_MAP_test_Score.html#Post96639
for a second-grader, it's in the 99 percentile. It's very very high. The MAP shows what your child knows now, so I think it's better than a "snapshot." From the links on the other thread, you should be able to get some info about what the score means, and what types of functions your child is ready for.

We had the same issues with our DS7 and math, along with accelerating into second this year. We had the meeting with the school saying that we felt the homework coming home was not challenging enough, and we were told at one point that homework was not meant to be challenging! At that point, we realized that we were having a communication problem... At any rate, we asked for subject acceleration into 3rd grade math, and they felt that he hadn't "mastered" the 2nd grade curriculum and also his handwriting was too poor to keep up in 3rd. They ended up pretesting him, and when he did well enough to test out of a unit, he got to move on to new concepts with the gifted coordinator. The classroom teacher also differentiated with him and another student, and when he saw that DS mastered the one or two concepts he missed on the pretests, he was sent to the gifted teacher.

This probably would have worked OK, but then we got the opportunity to move our DS to a school for HG kids, where they work ahead a year and also at a faster pace. This has been fabulous. The troubles we had at the old school re: pace are now taken care of, and now he also isn't the only one learning at his level.

As for making the teachers understand the numbers, spend some time on the NWEA site that is in the other thread. I'll try to post more later..

Mamabear - our school did use MAP to discuss grade acceleration - and it was the principal's idea - so while they get that the number is high, I don't think they really understand what it means in terms of his readiness level.

The communication problem is what we are trying to deal with St. Pauli Girl. I think I am going to print out the RIT Norm Scale and take it with us for the conference. I can tell from something the teacher has said in the past that they don't really have a full understanding of the scales and where it puts him with respect to 3rd graders or 4th graders, etc. I also found something from some old posts from the Poway district that corresponds MAP scores with what the student would be ready to learn. Our district does rely on the MAPS for kids at the other end of the spectrum but they have yet to fully use them in terms of preparing curriculum for higher levels. It's really all about presenting it in a way that they get, and like your experience, communicating it can be difficult.