Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy MAPs & Lexiles & Parent Conferences...OH MY!

You know, like lions & tigers & bears!

Sooooo...DD6's parent-teacher conference was today. She's in first grade, I am happy with her teacher and thought she had a good understanding of our daughter, for the most part. At the VERY end she gave us her MAP test scores and shoved us out the door -- did. not. even. review. them. (Is this unusual??) She's in first grade, and teacher said she was reading at a 3rd grade level (which sounded low to me but I decided to go with it).

Get home and the Math RIT is 198 which is a 99% and Reading RIT is 221 which is a 99%, only thing is from the chart a 221 is 99% for early second grade, a 98% for early third grade and a 93% for early fourth grade. Plus, her lexile is 884-1034, and I do not know how accurate this is but I guess that is about 9th-10th grade?? Is that correct?? I am wondering if this sounds like a 3rd grade reader to you?

And no, we've not had her IQ test (yet) waiting to hear from the gifted teacher on that. But, would you think this indicates subject acceleration? Can you use MAP scores to advocate for that? I don't know what to think anymore. But with scores sort of "off the charts" is it odd she handed us the sheet and said BUH-BYE!?

Help! What next!?

You can absolutely use these scores to advocate that your child be given reading instruction with other children who have similar scores...which would likely be either with other gifted children her age or with older students.

http://lp.jcsd.net/curic/inttechnology_files/page0003.htm

ETA: A RIT of 221 is about average for a 7th-8th grader according to the 2008 norms. The new norms might be different with this. The Lexile range that you gave includes Charlotte's Web, the Hobbit, and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

So I am curious how to approach this -- she said she's in a reading group with two other kids and they are reading at a 3rd grade level. She's pretty confident in this! Do I say these score indicate otherwise? I mean the books they are reading are in the 400-500 lexile level, as far as I can tell? Hmmmm.....

Oh wow -- thanks for that chart. I wonder if there is a place I can find an updated one online I could refer to for the teacher? This was her beginning of the school year scores (that we are just not getting) so that does look right about 8th grade. Super helpful -- what to do!?!?!

Found it on the NWEA site! This is SO HELPFUL. It has 221 as beginning of year 9th grade, and her math at mid-year 3rd grade. In case anyone else is looking the PDF can be downloaded here: http://www.nwea.org/support/article/normative-data-2011 and it is 2011.

Hmmmm....now what, back to teacher? Move on to principal, or try for the gifted teacher? Ack!

You'll probably also want to look at the full norms report:
http://www.nwea.org/sites/www.nwea.org/files/resources/NWEA_2011_RIT_Scale_Norms.pdf

The Lexile scores are harder to get exact percentiles on, but her range puts her smack dab on the proficient range for a 6th grader.

The best percentile/norms chart for lexiles that I've been able to find is way down on the bottom of this link from Scholastic: http://teacher.scholastic.com/products/sri_reading_assessment/pdfs/SRI_TechGuide.pdf

I believe that it is on page 81. It is reasonable to take her lexile range and look right at the middle of it and find the percentile off of that. Scholastic doesn't break it down beyond clusters of 5 percentiles (i.e. - 90th percentile, 95th, etc. but not 90th, 91st, 92nd, etc.) and they don't list scores above the 95th.

The middle of her lexile range is around 955-960 which would be around the 90th percentile for a fall 4th grader and around the 70th percentile for a fall 6th grader. I wouldn't argue that the teacher should consider her reading at a 9th or 10th grade level based solely on the lexile even though the upper end of it is around the 50th percentile for a 9th grader. The teacher might think that you are stretching it too much.

Honestly, my one kid whose scores looked like that in 1st got to the point where it would be easy to argue that was where her reading was by the end of 1st, though, and I'd suspect that your dd's scores will be harder to argue as nothing way far out of the norm in short order as well.

BTW, just to mention longer term. My kiddo who I mentioned at the end with similar scores around that same age wound up subject accelerating, doing GT pull outs, and finally skipping 5th grade. She's also subject accelerating post-skip in science.

There may be two other kids with whom the teacher can group your dd for reading right now, but the likelihood is that she will continue to pull away from the group unless they, too, are fairly gifted. I'd at least put subject acceleration on the table if her writing is fairly strong as well. We found the one year that dd did subject acceleration to be one of the better academic fits even moreso than GT pull outs. The grade skip was an even better choice later down the line.

Thanks so much Cricket!! This is so helpful! So I was saying 9th based on the RIT from the MAP -- but good to know where the lexile falls as well. 6th grade isn't even at her school -- it is middle school in our district. What KILLS ME is that she didn't even go over these with us -- just casually handed them to us at the end of the conference. UGH! From asking friends and other teachers EVERY SINGLE TEACHER went over these with every single parent. *sigh*

So, I will e-mail or call the principal tomorrow. I will push for subject acceleration for sure.

Let me ask another question -- would a score from MAPs or a Lexile score include comprehension? I can't tell you how many times I hear "Just b/c she can read it doesn't mean she can understand it." Gotchya, but I am not giving her War & Peace -- ya know??? I just want to be able to combat that one if it comes up. As long as the books are "content appropriate" this score indicates she should be able to read and understand the texts that fall into this range, correct?