I promised Inky that I'd post about our experience with my son taking both the primary and secondary MAP test this year.

Because we "homeschool" through a virtual academy, we have the unique opportunity to take the MAP test at home, where I can observe the test. After observing my son take the primary test, I felt that he probably hit the ceiling on the math portion of the test and asked the school if he could take the secondary MAP so we could get a more accurate picture. They agreed and he took it today. Here's how the test results differed for my son.

Language Usage
Primary Test: not given
Secondary Test: 212

Reading
Primary Test: 206.5
Secondary Test: 205

Math
Primary Test: 216
Secondary Test: 226

As you can see, the reading test scores were pretty comparable. The math scores, however, were way off. This confirms that the primary test does have a ceiling, and that young gifted students may benefit from using the secondary test if their scores are pretty high.

One thing that was interesting to me was seeing the differences between my 9 yo daughter's test and my 7 yo son's test. My daughter's best subject is language arts; her language usage test was MUCH harder than my son's test and her score reflected that. My son's best subject is math, which was also reflected in the scores. Despite being two years younger, their tests looked similar and my son scored 2 points high than his sister which is exactly what I expected as they've completed roughly the same math curriculum. Their reading scores also reflected what I would have expected based on my observation of their reading abilities. There was one really odd score in my daughter's test that I have yet to figure out what happened.

Thank you for the follow up! That is quite a jump between the Primary and Secondary Math tests. The 216 is at the 98% of 2nd graders, while the 226 is at the 97% of 3rd graders.

Glad to hear the scores generally reflect your observations of their abilities.

I will be able to contribute to this comparison next week, because after DD6's WISC IV results were shared with the school last week they decided to retest her with the full MAP after deciding that she probably hit the ceiling on the primary test. I'm interested to see if there is a difference with her scores. We meet on Tuesday, so I'll let you know then.

My five year old daughter took the MAP reading test (possibly the primary level) and I thought the results underestimated where she actually was. The school had her take the test for 2nd graders (not sure if this is the secondary test) and her score increased 17 points.

Yes twogifts, that sounds like the secondary test. I just got DD7's official scores today and her reading growth rate flattened a bit from the previous test. I'm wondering if this is due to the ceiling more than anything else. Her reading RIT was 213, so (making a wild guess based on this vast sample size ) ceiling effects seem to come into play with the primary test around 210. Maybe I need to ask about retesting on the secondary version. Thanks for the additional information.

Our virtual academy uses the primary test for grades K-2 and the secondary for grades 3-12. I read someone else said their school used the secondary test starting in 2nd grade. I wonder if the difference is due to regular vs. gifted school/program.

From my son's test, it seems to me that the primary test can handle up to regular 4th grade questions. The only reason I think that may be is that my son's reading test scores came out the same and are at a 4th grade level. What I saw of the primary math test seemed to stop at about 4th grade as well. That, plus the fact that he's above fourth grade level in math and it underestimated is abilities. So, if your child is above 4th grade in language usage, reading, or math it may underestimate their abilities. At or below 4th grade and it might still be accurate.

Another thing to consider - from what I understand, headsets are worn during the primary test and not during the secondary where the child reads the questions. If your young child has been reading independently for a while, the secondary test might be more familiar. It seems like if they take the primary test and have to go through many easy questions before getting to the truly challenging ones, the taker could also get burned out.

These are just some thoughts; I'm certainly not an expert!

My experience in watching my kids take this test two years now is that the test adapts pretty quickly.

What I see as a possible challenge with the primary test is if you have a student who isn't an auditory learner. I can be pretty darn difficult to listen to the test read to you if you aren't good at listening.

The computer reading to you, and you then put into a fixed speed for the test was very very frustrating for DD. She actually was able to come home after it mimicing the computer's voice with amazing accuracy. She said it was "way to easy, and frustrating, and too S-----L------O------W"(read as a 6 yr old exaggerating slow speed with slow speaking).
After she took the secondary test she reported back that it was much much better because she could read the questions at her own speed and go as fast or slow as she wanted to.

At her school they start using the secondary test for 2nd graders, when they figure the kids can all read well enough to do it on their own. (DD is reading at about gr 5 level, so it was pretty much torture for her to listen to the whole test being read to her.)

She finished the math test yesterday, but there was a crisis at the school and they gave her the option of finishing it later, but she chose to finish it then, so I'm not sure how well the math grade will reflect any difference between the tests for her, but we'll see.

Well, I'm not sure DD's new scores are comparable to her primary scores. Here are her scores from winter and spring. (Winter was primary and Spring secondary)

Math: W - 183
S - 199

Reading: W - 193
S - 198

Language Usage: W - not given in primary
S - 211

General Science: W - not given
S - 205

Sci Concepts and Processing: W - not given
S - 194

The most interesting thing about these scores was that in Math and Reading, the tests she took at both level, her growth was way above the typical growth reported. In Math, the yearly growth was 19, and typical growth was 5! And for reading the yearly growth was 14 and typical growth was 5! This is amazing to us because she didn't seem to be learning anything new at school in either of those subjects this year, but I guess she must have been.

I have just entered this discussion board and would like to clarify the title or designation of the MAP tests. The first is the Primary. It is administered with the use of headsets. there are conditions/recommendations when a child should take the MAP Standard test -there is no secondary test. The MAP Standard test administration is recommended for 2nd grade and above up to 9th grade. Or for students below second grade who meet the criteria. Teachers who administer the test should know all of the criteria.

The scale is continuous. The test is dynamic and does adapt quickly after each response.

I have heard that the Primary does ceiling out at approx. 4th grade but don't have any research to be sure that this is correct.

Roslyn,
Thanks for clarifying that. That checks on the NWEA website:
http://www.nwea.org/support/details.aspx?content=1261
Since gifted kids fall outside the "commonly" used criteria, I think some are being given the primary test when they need the standard test instead.
It also seems there is a "standard" MAP test for grades 2-5 and 6+.
http://www.nwea.org/support/details.aspx?content=914

Kerry,
Great growth!