Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment MAP test score for reading going down

I just got my son's MAP reading score. In K and Ist grade, DS was in 99 percentile. In 2nd grade the score kept going down. From 207 in 1 st grade spring to 204 in second grade spring. What is going on? How to help him?

I am not familiar with the MAP scores or test.
Maybe that isn't statistically significant. I mean, 207 and 204 sound about the same to me. Does it seem like his reading is progressing?
Perhaps part of it could be- lots of kids are not reading in kindergarten, and half at the start of first grade aren't. Even second grade. So perhaps the curve is higher in second grade than kindergarten- like if the child is an early reader, they will score off the charts in kindergarten but not as much later on.
however, they could still be a great reader.

What is going on is that he isn't getting any reading instruction at his level, and he isn't getting enough practice with challenging material to go up on his own. Those scores are more like what is expected of the average 4th or 5th grader, and he is not getting that level of instruction in his classroom.

With my dd who is pretty consistent, even when she got inadequate or what amounted to no instruction, her reading MAPS scores went up while her math MAPS score kind of stagnated. I attributed it to her being able to pick up reading and most language arts by osmosis basically b/c she read a lot. Math, on the other hand, suffered a lot in the absence of actual instruction b/c it wasn't something she had the opportunity to self teach in the absence of reading math texts or being a seriously mathy kid who saw math in daily life, which she is not.

In your ds' instance, what have the percentiles and total #s looked like -- was it 99th consistently with the #s going up and then a slow decline?

Does anyone who knows much about MAPS know if the test is a different version starting in 2nd when the OP's dc' scores started to level or slip?

Of course, you can talk to his teacher about it.
You can also in the meantime just have him read more at home. My second grader this year did a reading contest at school- he read 400 books or book chapters in 4 months. He started reading ALOT at home for this silly contest- magically, his reading skills just jumped.
You could read a book with him and have like a book club at home where you discuss it. Etc.

Thanks for the replies. My DS reads a lot at home, he reads magazines and chapter books. He comprehends the information because he uses that in his conversations.
The climb was really steep in K and 1st grade, through out 99 percentile and in second grade it jut dropped down kind of steeply.
I will be talking to his teacher as well.

The difference in PMAP and MAP is PMAP is read to the kids via head phones. I believe that would be the only difference in the tests.

eta... some schools switch to the regular MAP in second grade others in third

Our school switches to MAP from PMAP in 2nd grade. My son skipped midyear and we got all sorts of promises that his score would go down with his first MAP. It didn't, it went up 12 points.

However, it hasn't moved since. In four tests now, his score has stayed literally exactly the same. I expressed some concern to the teacher who said that she just can't teach the stuff that is the next level up in her class. Essentially she refused to differentiate. This sparked a whole level of advocacy on our part, which took the full year, and was still unsuccessful.

If you look at the RIT scales Inky has posted on other threads, is your child ready for the next 10 points section? In my research, this isn't just about reading. For example, the next section on my son's test was about logic arguments. He was expected to tell the difference between circular logic and strawman arguments. Well he's 8 and in 3rd grade with a teacher who won't teach so that's not going to happen!

We've dropped the issue because the next section is some pretty out there stuff and I'd rather he just read and love it right now. But if I felt like my child was ready to learn it, I'd work on it at home.

That's tough, CAMom. Is he so bored that you can motivate him to do some extra studying? If so, can you get his scores high enough for next fall's MAP testing to argue for another skip?

My kids' school is using a new curriculum this year that supposedly allows kids of all reading abilities to get the same instruction in the same classroom and progress at their own rates, but both my kids (MG+, HG+) have had the same MAP reading scores for the last year. Neither are reading books at their level in school because they want to read what's popular among their friends, and their teachers aren't requiring them to read at their level. I'm pretty sure my DS7 has completely tuned out the entire year's worth of reading "instruction" since he can't tell me a thing about what they're learning. And no wonder, when they're focusing on discussing books like "Henry and Mudge" and "Flat Stanley." We read as a family at home and discuss, but they don't tend to have time to read more than 30 minutes a night at home beyond that. I'm looking forward to the summer when they can read at their level whenever they want and we have the time for discussions about what they're reading.

BTW: Our school switches to the regular MAP from the PMAP at 2nd grade, and DS's teacher said that it is expected for scores to go down at this point. Still, my DS's scores don't reflect AT ALL that he is consistently reading and comprehending 5th-6th grade books at home, and has been for the last year. So any attempt to get accomodations falls on deaf ears.