NWEA MAP are different from grade level assessments like the Stanford Achievement Test. NWEA MAP are computerized tests which are adaptive. They're designed to target a student's academic performance by adjusting the difficulty of the questions. If a student keeps answering questions correctly, they keep getting harder questions.
The child's RIT Score is supposed to be independent of grade level, although ceiling factors seem to come into play with young gifted children taking the MAP for Primary grades and older gifted children taking standard MAP.
The beauty of MAP is it can make visible the needs of children who are performing significantly below or above grade level. This information is essentially invisible with standard grade level tests.
Ideally, a school would use this information to teach a child what he's ready to learn next. At the very least, they should share this information with parents so they can teach the child what he's ready to learn. Unfortunately, neither of these is a given.
