Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Map test results and grade advancement

I posted a while back, but with a newborn haven't had as much time to be on as I like. I hope you would still be willing to give me some advice. My dd is in K, we are deciding if she should be moved to 2nd next year instead of 1st. The school was against her moving to first in Novemeber when we had a meeting. In my opinion they are being very vague in their recommendation of skipping first. They have said it is a good idea, but also a bad. I feel like all they do is talk in circles, never really answering the questions and I feel more confused than ever. They did map testing to see where she fell and she got a 187 in math and a 177 in reading(it was her writing that really pulled this score down. This was taken in the begining of December. From what they gave us she is scoring right now as an average fall reading 2nd grader and a high fall math 2nd grader. Currently they do little to enrich her even though the said they would. She does stuff that we have sent in with her and we continue to enrich her at home. She is also in a gifted Saturday program. I guess I feel like they are putting the decision on us with little input so if she fails it is on us. I do not want a repeat of this year where she is bored, frustrated and almost becoming lazy in her work b/c there is no challenge. I've had friends say wouldn't you rather she was the top first grader than a average 2nd grader. I just am feeling overwhelmed with this decision. If we put her in first and she is bored they will fight us on the classroom change, if we move her I am afraid her writing won't be up to snuff and she may feel overwhelmed. She is close to the birthday cut off so I am not worried socially as she already plays with many kids who will be in 2nd next year, it is just more the writing/grammar aspect. Any advice or input would be greatly appreciate. My husband and I feel all alone in this decision and it is overwhelming.

You said that she was close to the bd cut-off; does this mean that she is one of the youngest or one of the oldest in her current grade?

You're in such a tricky spot. I'd generally agree that it is desirable for a child who skips to be in the top 25% of the grade into which she is skipping, so I do see the point of the people who say that skipping her into a grade in which she'll be an average student isn't ideal. However, I also understand that she may be underachieving due to inappropriate work.

We agreed to skip one of our girls a grade and she was one who still fell near the top of the grade into which she was skipping. Our other child we haven't skipped and I don't imagine we will be choosing to do so in the future. She has been an underachiever at times and an erratic achiever. Some of her underachievement probably came from some time where she wasn't taught much and kind of coasted by.

Your dd is still early, early in her elementary experience. I wouldn't look at it as a now or never proposition. What I might consider is supplementing her education with something like Aleks or EPGY at home, seeking subject acceleration in her strongest subject next year, and then seeing where her achievement falls come the end of 1st grade. Maybe at that time her performance level will be such that it is obvious that the skip is warranted (or not).

She is 5 months into K and already scoring like an average to high second grader. It isn't as though she is going to make no progress in the next 9 months. At this point, with the skip, she is probably going to walk into 2nd grade already knowing much of what they are going to "teach" her there. The point of school is not to prove what you already know, it is to learn things you don't know yet. From the standpoint of the child who is going to be sitting in the classroom, spending 7 hours a day going over boring stuff already mastered is just torture. You don't want her to spend first grade hating school. K to 2 is one of the easier skips to make, since so much of the first grade curriculum is just basic reading instruction and simple addition and subtraction.

You have nine months to play writing and grammar games with her if you are really worried that her skills there are below par - but it might be good for her to have a work a bit and not be the best without even trying in some area.

She is already part of the social group that will be in 2nd, so there is no worry about not fitting in or not having friends.

I'm not seeing a single reason to argue against the grade skip. If this were my child, I'd go for it.

Does your school use the Iowa acceleration scales? Using this can often put it out there in black and white a lot more clearly and relieve some of the anxiety about whether you are doing the right thing. If you did use this tool, I think she would be rated as an excellent candidate for a grade skip.

Thanks for the response. She missed starting K the previous year by 1 month so she is one of the oldest in the class right now. The only problem with her school is that they will not do subject acceleration only in class enrichment. Sadly, what they are doing with her is so minimal and it is a full day K so it isn't like they had limited time. Pretty much what they do is when they are practicing writing numbers she writes the words. When they are writing "A" for words that begin with that letter, again she writes the word. She has her write sentences here and there and she also writes in a journal we sent in with a story starter book I had. She does this in one of the centers, but that is twice a week.

I guess my biggest question for any really familar with MAP scores are do they think those qualify?

They do not use that. They did want to see the results of the testing done to qualify her for the gifted program she is in. That is through Northwestern Center For Talent Development in Illinois. I do feel as though we could help her catch up as she is eager to do activities at home. I just like getting perspective of people who have experience, so thank you for the advice.

So, looking @ the percentiles, it would probably make the most sense to see how her scores compare to 1st graders at the same point in the year since that is the group you'd be looking at her being part of. Her being on the older end is also a plus.

Her math MAPS score for a mid-year first grader would be at the 93rd percentile. Her reading MAPS score for a mid-year first grader would be at the 81st percentile. They're both at or beyond the 99th for a mid-year kindergartener. (Sorry not to have looked that up earlier before I replied!) It doesn't sound like she'd be average in that group, just not a super-star, top of the class kid.

eta: For mid-year 2nd graders her scores would be: 25th percentile (reading), and 77th percentile (math). There must be a lot of expected growth btwn mid 1st and mid 2nd on reading! Unless you have concerns in that area, her reading will likely take off like all of the other kids in 2nd, though. You mention her writing pulling the reading score down. The MAPS test is a computer based multiple choice test and the reading part doesn't including writing as far as I know. Are you sure it was reading MAPS and not Language Usage MAPS for which you were given the 177? Language Usage, while still multiple choice computer administered may include recognition of writing customs as well as grammar and punctuation.

Have you had any ability testing done? I'd definitely want to do that before deciding on a skip. I'm not saying that this is the case, but there are kids who achieve highly early on due to factors beyond super high ability and I'd want to make sure on that front too. The Iowa Acceleration Scale does say that kids who are on the older end can be considered for grade skips even if they aren't in that 98th percentile and up range as long as they are 1 standard deviation above the mean. It seems quite likely that your dd will fall at least that high if not higher.

I'll just give you a little of my experience since we just did what you are considering.

I skipped my DS into 2nd this year. He was in K last year. His birthday was the day before the cut off so before the skip he was already the youngest in his class. That puts him probably 2 years younger than a lot of the kids 2nd grade. He turned 6 at the end of September. He has a step-sister in 2nd grade who is 8 and a step-brother who is 6 and in K so I was able to see his interactions with both age ranges before skipping him and I was pretty sure he'd do better with older kids socially.

I think for us it's been a really good decision. I'd say that he's still probably at least top 3 in his class (he's never brought home less than an A on a report card) but he is finally seeing some new material. Having to actually use his brain a little when doing homework has been a learning experience for both of us but I think that he needs to learn to put some effort forth in school so it's been a positive. We do have a problem with his handwriting being not so great but I think it's because his motor skills are still developing.

Socially he's doing really well. This is the first year (he's been in school since Pre-K) that he has friends that he talks about and he seems to have one or two that he plays with a lot. I think that the kids in 2nd grade are more on his level than the kids in 1st were. He also seems to have stepped up his maturity level now that he's in a class with older kids. He still gets in trouble from time to time but probably not any more than average.

I'm glad that we skipped him now so that he can move up with these kids through elementary and middle school. He's really short for his age so he's especially short for 2nd grade but nobody has bothered him about it. Nobody has said a thing about his age to him either as far as I know. This is the happiest he's been since he's been in school.

It says on the results they gave me: Reading score 180
(phonological awareness 163-179)
(phonics 170-187)
(concept of print 181-198)
Reading score 174
(vocab. word sturcture 165-179
(comprehension 169-182)
(writing 166-180)

It is my understanding to add the two top scores 180 and 174 and then average them to get the real score which is where the 177 came from.

I also have results on a chart that list her scores as
Reading 177:
Kdg not on charts for fall or spring too high
1: higher 90% for fall
Avg 65% for spring
2: Avg 34-65% for fall
not on charts for spring too low

Math 187
Kdg not on charts for fall or spring too high
1: not on charts for fall too high
High 66% for spring
2: high 66% for fall
Avg 34-65% for spring

The chart they gave says RIT scores to percentile rank conversion chart. It seems like there are several ways to read them.

I'm not familiar with what the subtests in K are, but here's the link to the chart where you can convert RIT/MAPS scores to percentiles: http://pickens.it.schoolfusion.us/m...ssionid=14d1e9266e4482d198ebc39c6e6bc9c3

Breaking what they gave you apart,
That sounds almost right, since 177 is exactly at the 99th percentile for mid-year K and falls right btwn the 96th and 97th percentile for spring K.

Again, that sounds right around what I'd get off the norms chart: 93rd-94th for fall 1st, 63rd-65th for spring 1st.

I'm getting 43rd-45th for fall 2nd and 17th-18th for spring 2nd. I don't know why they said it was too low to be on the charts.

That is definitely above the 99th for fall K and right at the 99th for the spring of K.
For 1st grade, I'm getting: right btwn the 97th and 98th percentile for fall and 78th to 80th for spring
I've got: 77th-78th percentile for fall and 36th - 39th percentile for spring.

I wonder if they are going off of an older norms chart. I believe that these 2008 norms are the newest set of norms for NWEA MAPS.

I'm also wondering why they are looking at fall and spring norms when the test was administered mid-year. The mid-year norms seem to make the most sense to me and, like I said, it seems like she'd be well above average (easily in the top 25%) for the mid-year first graders -- which is who you're aiming to place her with.

I'm also wondering why they are looking at fall and spring norms when the test was administered mid-year. The mid-year norms seem to make the most sense to me and, like I said, it seems like she'd be well above average (easily in the top 25%) for the mid-year first graders -- which is who you're aiming to place her with. [/quote]

Thank you for the link and the break down. The chart is dated 2008, but it is just showing fall and spring scores for KDG thru 8th. Maybe since she took the test December they still consider it fall, though I'm not sure why.