Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment NWEA MAP Math Scores Declining. What would you do?

I'd appreciate suggestions to help my DD (rising 3rd-grader) with her math studies outside of school, espc over the Summer. Here's the situation:

DD (8.5 years) has taken the NWEA MAP in Fall/Spring each year, starting w/1st grade. Her Reading scores have always been 99th percentile. Her Spring 2013 score was 224. While the school provides no acceleration or reading enrichment for DD, we have an extensive home library & great public library system, newspapers & magazines at home, etc. and very limited screen time, so she seems to do well enough on her own.

Math is another story. Her end-of-1st grade MAP scores put her in the 96th percentile: 202 (Spring 2012). Her Fall 2012 MAP Math scores put her in the 89th percentile: 194. Her most recent MAP Math, taken at the end of 2nd grade, put her in the 78th percentile: 201. Am I wrong or does this mean that DD has learned virtually no math in her 2nd grade year? I do believe that emphasis was placed on bringing up the struggling math students in her classroom this year, so I suspect DD spent the year in review mode at best.

DD also recently took the SCAT via JHU CTY and here are her scores (am I providing the correct numbers here?):

Verbal: 40/446/93%

Quant: 35/438/77%

According to CTY, DD is eligible to take both Humanities and Math classes until she's in 6th grade, I believe. I'm not sure if on-site classes are offered at this young age, but we live in KS so we'd be looking at online classes for DD.

Would an online CTY math class over the Summer, and perhaps in the school year, help DD regain some Math-ground? Should we instead hire a tutor, or is that too extreme? Am I over-reacting? We've used Summer proactive math tutoring for our older DSs, just to prepare them for the coming math year, but it's expensive and I haven't been convinced that it helped much. This year, we decided not to spend the money on the older DSs and have them study math on their own.

If you were in my shoes, what would you do? TIA.

One thought, here-- do you have any indication that she has high potential in mathematics, beyond the achievement scores taken at the end of each school year? Those SCAT scores seem to pretty accurately mirror the MAP scores from this spring, so unless you have additional data, I'd have to think that they are accurate.

It sounds like she's been fortunate enough to live in a significantly enriched early childhood environment, yes? So relative to peers who entered school with very poor numeracy skills, that 90th percentile score at the end of 1st makes quite a bit of sense.

It's entirely plausible to me that as she has had less and less instruction ahead of the instruction being offered in-level (at school) and that this explains why her scores are drifting toward the mean in her age cohort.



It's possible that this could a painfully awful fit between her learning style and that offered by the curriculum/instrction. She's outstripping the knowledge that she gained BEFORE school took over math instruction, perhaps. What math curriculum does her school use? What did she see prior to K/1st?

I guess I'd try looking at how INTERESTED she is in learning/doing mathematics to know what to do (if anything).

It's entirely possible to have fairly normative development in one cognitive domain and very asynchronously developing ability in another, too. If that is the case, then I'd probably just accept that subject acceleration in language arts would be a good path forward for her-- it would meet her needs for advanced instruction in the area where she needs that. I'm not sure that those math scores indicate a problem to be remediated. In my opinion, forcing the issue isn't likely to help much, and may even make things worse by turning it into a "flaw" in her mind.

ALSO possible that this is the emergence of a learning challenge of some kind as students move from concrete to increasingly abstract (representational/symbolic) thinking in mathematics. It might not even be a learning challenge so much as that not all people have the same affinity for that symbolic quantitative thinking.


Hard to say.

I'm guessing that your gut is telling you something is off, though, or you wouldn't have asked.

Howler, thanks for your detailed response. I do appreciate it. I'll try to answer your questions here.

We did not work with DD on math at home before she entered K (ashamed to say it, but it's true). Her preschool didn't provide much in the way of math, either. I must confess that I don't know how DD knew what math she knew or where she learned it, aside from school instruction. She does have 2 older brothers, but they haven't taught her any math - though I may have them work with her now.

I don't know if DD has high math potential or not. She seems to like math, but is more of the reading/artsy type, and she reads constantly. She tends to learn things quickly and has always done well at math at school, at least in terms of grades. I just bought her some math workbooks for the Summer and she was happy about them, for what that's worth. But I thought perhaps an online math course or other activity might be more exciting/engaging for her.

As far as school curriculum, she was in the "advanced" math group in her classroom this year...which I recently learned consisted of rotating parent helpers who took half the class out into the hall during math time do to math worksheets...while the teacher worked with struggling students in the room. I wasn't pleased to learn that actual teacher instruction had been minimal in math for at least the 2nd semester. That may be part of the reason for her declining scores.

All-in-all, I was shocked to see her Spring Math MAP and it seems she may have learned very little this year. She's actually lower by one point now than she was at the same time a year ago. DD likes to try anything new, and loves learning new things, so she'd probably be open to an online math class or whatever we decide to do.

Yes, I definitely do think something is off here, but I'm not sure what it is or what to do about it. She may have even been having an "Off" testing day, but I don't want to make that assumption.

I agree with Howler that it is hard to tell if you have a problem, but from your description of math class, it seems like she could have been learning more. I think there are probably a lot of free online math resources you could find, of your DD is interested. Maybe others can post there favorites here or you could do a search-- I think this has been discussed before.

For a verbal kid, I would recommend Life of Fred books. My DS9 loves them. They are written in the style of a novel with a funny storyline, and math concepts are addressed throughout. My DS never did the problems (end of chapter or end I book, I think?), but he seemed to absorb the math anyway.

Life of Fred books

"Those SCAT scores seem to pretty accurately mirror the MAP scores from this spring, so unless you have additional data, I'd have to think that they are accurate."

HowlerKarma, these may be the same percentile, but the SCAT is normed 2-3 years out of grade level. I would assume the 77%ile on the SCAT reflects a much higher score than the SCAT. However, my understanding is that the SCAT is a mix of aptitude/achievment, while the MAP is strictly an achievement test.

I will definitely look at the Life of Fred books - thank you!

And yes, the SCAT DD took was supposed to be for grades 4-6 (or something like that) and measures reasoning to a degree. According to CTY, DD is qualified to take the highest level math courses offered (for her age range or however they work that...I obviously need to do more research). So it seems that DD must have some math potential...???

I do appreciate the responses. I believe I've seen ALEKS mentioned here and I will search that now. It may be another option.

Jewel,

My DD9 (rising 5th grader) took SCAT when she was in 2nd grade and got similar score. Actually she is very good in Math but she was not being challenged. We decided to supplement her with Singapore Math (<$10 for 1 book) and Khan's academy (free:-).

She is doing SEPCTRUM - Algebra and Geometry ($10/ book each) this summer. After summer, she will use Thinkwell online classes. ($125 for the whole school year)

I will send her to CTY camp when she is a little older but for now, I am spending my money wisely. CTY classes are expensive and we may use them in high school if we can use it for high school/college credits.

Well, not necessarily. Looking at those scores, your dd's math score actually rose 7 points (194 to 201) from Fall to Spring this school year. Now her spring score from last year was actually 1 point higher (from 202 to 201) than this year but was there a similar pattern of a lower score from the previuos Fall? Could it be that her 1st grade teacher taught some higher level stuff that your DD easily picked up but then easily forgot over the summer? Some kids (like my own dd) learn math easily but does not necessarily retain everything that well.

On the other hand, 78th percentile (national or local?) does seem a bit low compared to the SCAT scores normed against 4th graders, even after you account for her age (8.5 versus many kids who take the 2nd grade SCAT at age 7.0 to 8.0). If expense is a concern, you may want to consider ALEKS, which is only $20 a month. That way, you can determine if she is missing anything from the 2nd grade curriculum and perhaps give her some prep with the 3rd grade curriculum.

Hi, Jewel

I think MATH is really easy to catch up. I think DD just needs to be exposed to more advanced contents since she didn't get them at school. Singapore math works extremely well for kids at young age. Just buy the workbooks and have her work on it. There are placement tests that you can have her to take before you decide which level to start with. We had very good experience with my DD7. She has improved 20 points in MAP from 2012 fall to 2013 spring. (She started at 99% in the fall) She is in the math enrichment class but I don't think it helps at all in terms of MAP testing. If you need to know more, feel free to PM me.

I am in fact frustrated with my DD's reading score. How did your DD8 improve her reading score? My DD7's read MAP scores of winter is above 220 too. For some reasons it dropped a lot in spring. She had no acceleration of reading at school. But she reads a LOT at home as well. (finish book of 400-500 pages in 1-2 days.) I don't know why it dropped to a score even lower than the beginning of the school year. Can you share what you have done for DD in terms of reading?

Jewel,

My kids have also taken the SCAT - and one thing I don't know about that vs other tests (we don't use the MAP here) is what types of questions are asked on the SCAT - it's really tough to make comparisons between tests without knowing specifics about the type and breadth of questions asked on the tests. Please know I'm not discounting the SCAT scores at all! Just saying that I haven't found a lot of info re what is included... and yes, I do know there are sample questions on the CTY site. I also don't know what kind of info parents get re the questions asked on MAP tests.

When I had questions about where my kids are at re math curriculum, I've found the easiest way for me personally to get an understanding of it was to have them take an assessment through ALEKS - simply because the ALEKS assessments can spit out a report tied directly to your own state standards... which in theory should be the basics your school district curriculum is built upon.

I personally wouldn't have my young child prep for math by taking a CTY course - as Peter mentioned, they are extremely expensive. We do have our middle school ds taking CTY courses, but they are courses he hasn't taken in school and it's likely we'll be able to use the credit from the courses he's taken for placement in high school. There are a large number of other options for math enrichment in elementary school. One thing that's not mentioned as often here is local tutoring groups (could be a national chain such as Sylvan or Kumon) or something local. In general, I wouldn't personally use these for enrichment but the bonus for families I've known who have is that the schools where we are recognize and give credit to achievements through tutoring services. The downside to a program like Kumon (just from my experience) is that they follow a very set progression, so if you're looking to fill in a few specific gaps rather than just progress through their curriculum from point a to point z, you most likely aren't going to be able to do that without doing everything else along the way.

Last thing - I wouldn't overly worry over one MAP test - it's possible it was just not the best testing day for your dd. If you've had other concerns about how she was progressing in math or what was/wasn't offered in her class this year, then definitely pursue helping her out - otherwise, maybe just let her have the summer off

Hope some of that helps!

polarbear