Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Pretests to determine math placement

Dd's (4th grade) school uses the Connected Math and uses the CM end of the year test as pretests to determine if the student should be accelerated. Dd has never been exposed to CM and isn't verbally strong (VCI 124 vs. PRI 151) so she doesn't do that well on these tests.

Is it common for gifted programs to use this sort of testing to determine math placement? Wouldn't something like MAPS be less biased towards students who aren't as strong verbally? Or not great at explaining their thinking or how they solved something?

For instance, dd can look at a multi-step story problem and do the problem in her head but when you ask her how she solved it she can't explain it. She says she just knows this is the answer. The teacher wants her to be able to explain her thinking in writing and how she solved it.

Dd's school doesn't use MAPS. I looked into EXPLORE and SCAT. Personally I don't want her to spend 4 hours testing on the EXPLORE, she doesn't enjoy test taking and I can see her fatiguing or viewing it as a negative experience. I don't like the format of SCAT, but may considerate but it doesn't help with DYS qualification so I'm not as interested.

I'm considering having the psychologist who did her WISC test do the WJ IV. Personally I'd like to just know where she's at with her achievement, but I would also like to use the data to help advocate math acceleration. Would the WJ be a good achievement test that most schools are familiar with and may help with getting her accelerated? Or do schools that stick strictly with pretests don't care what outside achievement (or even talent search) results show?

My son's school used a combination of the post test, the previous year's standardized testing, the previous year's school testing for placement in gifted IQ, score and my outside achievement testing. We were really looking at just math acceleration. The first no I got was just looking at the post test and his worst area was explaining his answer. We kept gathering data and made our group decision with all that data.

But that is a big skill and not specific to on grade level work. My counter to that objection was like finding the main idea is a skill you can work on with a sixth grade book or a 4th grade book and if everything else is factored in might as well work in on that with a book at the correct level...same thing for math...if explaining your answer is the problem area for a child, it is easier to explain a difficult problem rather than 2 + 1= 3.

Our school gives end of the year tests, but I am not sure if they are the tests by the test publisher or something the school came up with. They use those scores in combination with MAP and the state standardized test math scores. I think they want to see 85 percent accuracy on the end of the year grade level tests to skip that grade. I'm not sure what they do if a student does extremely well on something like MAP but then bombs the paper/pencil tests. I don't think the tests have any "explain your answer" type questions, they are multiple choice or do the calculation and write your answer type questions (from what I've heard), although the unit tests seem to have a lot more "explain your answer" type questions.

Keep in mind that the WJ math achievement test takes into consideration fluency/speed which may be a strength or a weakness for certain kids. DD's MAP score was way higher than her composite on the WJ because of this. Her WJ broad math score put her pretty average for her age, but she is accelerated 2 grade levels for math and doing fine. It's the timing aspect that messes her up but she's great with abstract reasoning (probably a lot of it is making educated guesses on multiple choice tests) and therefore does well on MAP and the school pencil/paper pre-tests.

FWIW, DS was tested in first grade with the WJ ach. as part of a comprehensive evaluation for special ed and his broad math was 155. I tried to use it to advocate but no one really seemed to care about his score (even though it was the school itself that gave him the test, they almost treated it like they thought it was a bogus result or irrelevant in terms of using the score to place him appropriately).

I homeschool and I liked using thinkwell.com's placement testing... You chose the level you think they are, and give a test, and then move up or down in pavement testing based on the score, until you get a test that seems to indicate some mastery, some struggle. I did this for my DD to place her this fall. Worked well for us, but I homeschool and control all her curriculum.

My daughter's school gave a 5th grade placement test and took that score into consideration, along with her spring NWEA math score, her MEAP Math score, and teacher recommendation. Based on these scores, she was placed in 7th grade math for 5th grade, which put her on an accelerated team.

My third grade DS school look at the combination of the two MAP test scores from the second grade fall and spring and also the CogAt test (I believe is an ability test) to determine if a child can be in gifted LA and Math programs. Teacher's recommendation doesn't take much weight on the determination of the "gifted kids".

My first grader DS may have issues with the MAP test as he is a very careless test taker but I suspect that he is gifted from his other test scores to get into a University enrichment program.