Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment MAP: Can You Have Artificial "Good Day" Score?

Are her comprehension tests the traditional AR tests that she takes on the computer? Or is the teacher asking her questions and waiting for verbal indication that she comprehends?

If it is the computerized AR test, then I would ask that she be tested orally and see if this changes the comprehension score. If it does then I would start to consider that either she is not a good tester or that she may have some trouble using the computer or might need an eye examination.

If you can't identify a problem with the comprehension testing, and you feel that her reading is not being challenged at school then I would probably chalk it up to an uncooperative teacher and do my best to work with DD at an appropriate reading range at home.

Anytime you have a multiple choice test with no penalty for guessing, there is the potential to boost the scores a little. There is a standard error of 6 to 8 points around a score, but in general, the MAP score should not be that far off. Therefore, even if your DD is not really at 98 percentile, she is clearly well above average.

The MAP tests more than just simple reading comprehension so obviously high areas can mask lower areas.

As the MAP is multiple choice, it does not require the ability to formulate a coherent written and/or oral response, which the school curriculum most likely requires. If your DD has weaknesses in written expression and/or is not particularly articulate speechwise, that may impact her teacher's perception of her comprehension ability.

You need to find out the particulars about the remediation from the school as well as question your DD about her DRA testing experience.

Wow - Thanks so much for everyone's input. I never expected a first post to garner so much information and I'm grateful to everyone who has responded.

There are a few things which I now feel upon reading the responses here that may be contributing to our issues but I did not post because I was not sure about whether MAP could give "artificially high scores" and didn't want TMI out there.

This is the first MAP test DD has taken at the school so this is the starting point. I don't know if she is "test-wise" yet or not. I was surprised by her score because I didn't even know she was taking it, parents weren't informed. I just know she loves to read. She always has a book.

DD's "real" teacher went on maternity leave the 2nd week of school. Since that time, we have had a licensed "temp" teacher as the regular teacher. She is young, a recent graduate and appears to have been a regular temp at our school as well as a neighboring community school, and has been strict with following "the rules". The "real" teacher will be returning after winter break. While the temp teacher is nice and comes from a really good college, DD has not been challenged this year at all and every time this has been brought to our attention, we send an e-mail to which she responds "don't worry it will get harder". It has not.

The only accommodation that we have received is the reading group change when I was pretty adamant that with her scores she should not be reading "Splat the Cat" in class and going to remediation. My husband asked in an e-mail what the remediation was for and we were told "retired teachers like to come to the school and help out to make kids better readers". We still do not know what was being "worked on" during those sessions as DD said she just had to read with a bunch of kids who had trouble reading (hence my question of gross incompetence).

An oral DRA was done after conferences and my DD said she read a non-fiction selection all about growing peanuts . There was no writing and she said it didn't take very long. I asked if it seemed hard (any problems with words) and she said no.

The resultant e-mail I received from the teacher said my daughter didn't "understand why a character was sad" and she needed alot of work on comprehension so would move 1 level up. I had a hard time believing it and asked my DD if there was any "sadness" about the selection she read or anything her teacher talked about with her to imply such. She said no. In fact, at home we had just finished a book where it was sad for the characters because of poverty (Louis Armstrong's life as a boy) and I know she understands empathy for that situation. She reads all the time and recently started "The Lightning Thief" because of her interest in Greek mythology and she told me she loves reading it. It's rated for 5th-6th grade. The remediation stopped as well after the DRA.

My DD is one of the younger ones in the class. She just turned 7 right before school began and already alot of kids are 8 or are turning 8 soon in her class. She won't be 8 for the whole school year. She loves to read, but she can't write well at all. She is also shy and has not scored well on any of the Common Core speaking evaluations so far.

Because of her age, she still has a tendency to act "goofy" and has a preference for hanging out with younger children. We've tried to work on it, but it is a challenge. I feel this will hold her back. She excels in math (95% on the MAP) and reading (98% on MAP). But her writing score was only 90%. I feel this leads to a bad perception. Her writing is so remedial in comparison to her reading skills, I even wonder if she may have traits of dysgraphia. I just do not know at her young age if or when writing will improve to match her other cognitive abilities and I worry alot about it and whether it is an LD.

Some may ask why I haven't been down to the school to settle this. My husband is very worried about being perceived as the "problem parent" in the class and school. I feel like if I try and demand to visit the classroom now, I will be seen as "spying" because the teacher has already had some e-mail communication with us and my DD says no parents have visited this year and no volunteers were requested (perhaps because of the temp teacher). He has tried to keep it low-key and feels as long as she is getting a perfect on the tests (which she does) and the teacher refers to her as "a smart kid that we should be proud of", we should not rock the boat and risk any retaliation. DD is not upset about going to school and doesn't seem to have a bad attitude.

Inside, it bothers me a great deal to know my DD is stuck on low math and low reading (even with good test scores), but my husband does not agree. He was in a similar situation to my DD when he was young. His mother pushed for him to be accelerated and he has always maintained that it made his school years miserable. He says he had few friends, could never get a date with any girl, and being so young to graduate went on to affect him in college where he was the youngest one there too. He agrees that the work is remedial, but feels for now we should hold off.

In the meantime, I provide things at home to keep her interest up. We will wait until the regular teacher returns because we do not know what her stance will be either. MAP testing will be done again at the end of the year and like alot of you on this forum, we will see over time how it goes and make decisions as appropriate.

Once again, I do appreciate the thoughtful responses. I was not aware of being "test-wise" and all the anecdotes from others have provided a wealth of experience to draw from. This is a book, but perhaps someone else out there may find themselves in a similar situation with their child and find value in it.

Thanks again everyone.

Hmmm.... I have a couple of thoughts. First, remediation is not something that is offered as a normal part of a school day (like math or social studies). If a student goes to remedial reading (at our school, anyways) it is because a reading deficit has been noted and tracked. The parents are notified ahead of time and given a progress report.

Can you have your school librarian administer a STAR test? At our school the librarian gives the kids the STAR test and assesses their reading levels and comprehension.

To be honest, it sounds like your DD read one book (the peanut growing non fiction book) and the teacher tested her on an entirely different book (sad character book).

Your DD's writing may be at 90% (which seems low to you) but keep in mind she is probably the best writer in her classroom at 90%. That 90% isn't just her class, it is her entire district. For example, my DD has five elementary schools in her district, so if she scored 90% on her NWEA, it would mean that she tested better then 90% of all of the kids at all 5 schools, in her grade level!

So, don't let them discourage you based on a 90% writing test result, that is not a shabby score what so ever.

Unless you and your DH are ready and willing to sit quietly and let the year go by (or the time with this sub, anyways) with your daughter receiving remedial services that you have no clue if she really needs or not and give into the idea that in order for her to be challenged you have to basically continue her reading education at home, because she is not being taught anything at school, then I would most definitely speak up.

All signs are pointing to a problem, IMHO. You see her reading and comprehending at home. Something is not adding up. I would definitely ask to meet with the remedial specialist and find out what the diagnosis is that put your daughter into that service and then I would ask about STAR testing, AR testing, etc... Also, I would want to know if the books she is reading in class match her NWEA Lexile range.

If there is a problem with her reading and comprehension, fine, they need to do a better job communicating the problem to you so that you can understand and support it. But you are not seeing any problem, her test score is not indicating a problem, so someone needs to do some explaining, IMHO.

It is hard to muster up the courage and advocate. My only advice is to let go of what others might think of you and remember that you are the voice of your child. She deserves an equal opportunity to have a great education.

It sounds like a HUGE disconnect between the scores and the leveling of your DD. She is excelling in more than one area - this is harder to ignore or chalk up to good guessing. I do not believe that MAP tests are ever age-normed (ours have never been). This means your young DD is outperforming most in her grade, despite her age. "Remedial," is not something I would expect to see with those scores unless your DD is "twice exceptional" or 2e. Have they specifically diagnosed a LD? If a LD is suspected, the school needs to better communicate with you. Also, a LD could be actually dragging her scores down - she might score even higher on achievement testing with the proper support for her needs/possible challenges. It sounds like the school needs to consider the whole picture with your DD. They also should be accommodating her strengths (providing academic challenge so she will continue to make progress), as well as her challenges (what, specifically, needs remediation and how do they plan to address?). I think you might need to put the "problem parents" concerns to the side here (I understand that this can be difficult).

Perhaps our testing experts can weigh in - at this point, perhaps it is a good idea to rule out a LD (for your peace of mind, and to perhaps illustrate her learning potential, as well), with an assessment (WISC, etc.)?

Wishing you and your DD the best!

I have another update to this thread and wanted to see if any one of the forum users might be able to offer some additional advice.

I was under the mistaken impression that my daughter was no longer attending the small group sessions at her school. She came home last week with a packet and I asked about it because it was the first evidence of what's been happening in her reading sessions and it was completed. She said it was done but they were getting ready to start another. I was concerned because her teacher just stuck the packet in her folder and still we have not received any notice about any of this outside of my DD. The packet was indeed for speed of reading and comprehension questions. Of course, her writing was terrible and the sentences awful, but clearly I could see she was able to answer all the questions and had coherent responses which I would expect. I asked her if it seemed hard and again she replied no.

We have contacted the teacher about the disconnect between our daughter's scores and receiving remediation. This is all being done via e-mail and we are trying to be careful about it. We have asked 2 times now and the teacher keeps using disingenuous euphemisms in response to the sessions calling them "additional practice" "with volunteers" and "reading with other students beyond what is done in the room" and "based upon her own observations and not from the result of any test". The sessions are small group and repetitive which seem to fit the description of how Tier 2 RTI is to be conducted in our state.

At this point, I am pretty concerned. In online research, most RTI sites say parents should be informed and involved when a child enters Tier 2 as it's much more intense and a serious deficit has been noted. I have even seen some sites state that it's against the "spirit of child-find laws" to not inform parents when a child is placed in Tier 2. This teacher has done nothing but attempt to skirt the issue. And it is only when we explicitly question, that we then receive these vague and patronizing responses.

At this point, I am worried about what this means.

Obviously, DD has failed some benchmark. She seems to be in Tier 2 RTI working on comprehension and has been for some time even with a reading MAP score of 98%. Her class reading group is currently reading 400 lexile level books when MAP suggested 600 level (and that was at the beginning of the year). The school has not informed us of anything and the teacher is less than forthcoming. DD is still bringing home perfect test scores and seems happy enough.

I feel we have an uncooperative temp teacher but am not sure what to do about it. How serious is this for my DD? We had hoped to get her advanced as clearly from her test scores the work is too easy. But now, I feel like she may be getting negative remarks in her file with RTI that would set her up for disqualification. Has the school already labelled her? I read online that 50% of the kids sent to RTI are misevaluated or presumed "diagnosed" or that RTI can sometimes be mistakenly used in perpetuity to keep students who really need to be evaluated from having one due to cost. I am embarrassed to say it, but could this also be an extreme measure by an uncooperative teacher to level my DD?

If we demand an evaluation, what does this mean for my DD's future in this district? Will she forever be labelled whether she actually has an issue or not affecting her future class placement? She is young, could she be misidentified as ADHD and we would be stuck with that label? I've also read many younger children in classrooms tend to be given this label erroneously when they don't seem mature in comparison to older classmates.

Should we let it go and wait until the regular teacher comes back after winter break? Or because it's been some weeks now and testing takes time, should we act now and just contact the school counselor and demand evaluation asap as we can't tell about the duration of these sessions? If an evaluation comes back as LD does she go into remedial classes for next year such as master of none said her son experienced?

This whole situation just seems very off to me. I don't understand the disingenuity on behalf of the teacher, I don't understand why information didn't come home automatically as our states DOE says explicitly that when Tier 2 is needed, it's critical for parents to be involved to achieve success. It is one of the 6 common goals identified for the program to "prevent the state from making judgements on behalf of a child without parental input". I don't know what this means for the future and any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Personally, I would not wait. I would ask for a conference with the substitute teacher and see if you can try to understand what is going on with your DD. Although the regular teacher might be easier to communicate with, I wouldn't want to lose any more time. Do they suspect a LD? Have they been clear on this? It doesn't sound like they have.

Will your DD retake the MAP in the winter? The problem is, unless she is managing to "challenge herself" enough on her own at this point, her scores may begin to drop and then they might say "See? The fall scores were just a fluke." Based on what you have written here, the instruction they are currently providing, on its own, is unlikely to keep her MAP scores up. Still, she might be doing this on her own.

Do you suspect a LD? If so, would you consider outside testing, as mentioned above?

My DD is young in her class, too, and had similar-range fall of 2nd grade MAP reading test scores (she had just turned 7 during the summer before 2nd grade). She IS an excellent reader, and I felt that the test was probably accurate for her. After the test, DD's school kept her in the most challenging reading group they had for 2nd grade, and DD has continued to make progress. DD also read a great deal on her own. Her start of 3rd grade MAP test score gave her a lexile range starting at over 1100. This allowed DD to stay at the same percentile range on her fall of 3rd grade MAP tests. I think her progress was partially just because she is a reader (challenges herself), but I do think the 2nd grade reading teacher did try to keep her group THINKING.

Best wishes to you and your DD! Please let us know how you are doing.

I have a child who scores really high on MAPS tests and low on DRA. He was diagnosed as dyslexic with very high intelligence. We score 95th percentil on MAPS and a year behind on DRA. I would want to know the reason for the lower DRA score. For my child it is fluency, word correct per minute. He reads much slower than he should. However, when he has quite a bit of time, like on MAPS, which has no time limits, he does extremely well. I still would want him to be in a remediation or extra help group just to get better at all of it.

Believe me, if your daughter had dyslexia or a LD, you would suspect something. I would see him guess at whole words alot. The first letter would be correct and the rest of the word wasn't even close. If he guessed correct, he did great on comprehension. If he guessed an important word wrong, then he did terrible. I noticed major spelling issues, grammar issues, and up until early 4th grade reversed letters. His dyslexia is considered minor, but he still has major issues. We also have major swings in assessments, which makes it really hard to know how they stand.

I would go in and meet with the teacher and ask to see the DRA score sheet. For my son, DRA is a much better indicator of how much he has improved over time.

Hello everyone! Hope all had a wonderful Christmas and are looking forward to the New Year!

Another update on this:

I spoke with DD's teacher a few weeks before holiday break and we requested that another DRA be performed. The conversation did not go very well as I explained what DD reads at home, how DD complained that her teacher didn't have any challenging books for her, and that DD noticed the difference in the reading groups with the high group getting much better books to read and according to my DD "way harder questions" from the teacher while all her group did was basically round-robin reading from a book about 300 points below DD's MAP assessed Lexile and no questions. DD also explained that for some weeks, the teacher would spend double time with the low group, time with the high group, and skip DD's group.

When I asked about the disconnect between MAP and DRA (teacher's assigned reading level), DD's teacher said her high MAP score was not even considered in determining classroom instruction. When I stated I was shocked because the district states 95% was the district's cutoff for advanced instruction and how they spend millions on administering MAP, she kept insisting DD was at the right level and MAP was of no consequence.

The DRA was done by another teacher and my DD came home from school saying her teacher "had a fit with her taking the test" and gave her trouble about utilizing the book for the writing part which my DD had to show her the paper which stated "use book" and explain that the other teacher had provided the book. This was not the first time my DD had stated that her teacher has been short with her.

We received no response back on the test from DD's teacher when we asked. We sent an e-mail to the other teacher asking for a score and were politely told that the information had been forwarded to my DD's teacher who is on maternity leave and someone would be in touch with us after school starts back up.

As part of the other teacher's e-mail who tested our DD, she put this in her reply which has since started a feud between DH and I:

"At this time, I recommend not focusing on the “level” she is reading, but simply making sure to read each night. It is both my personal and professional opinion that students should be reading books that they are interested in, rather than a specific level. The level of books simply helps teachers in finding good fit books for classroom instruction. "

This to me does not make sense. I feel level of text is extremely important. Lexile.com states that in order for students to grow, they must read books in their proximal range of no more than 100 points below their assessed Lexile and 50 points above. Like others, I feel wary of the DRA. My DD is a terrible oral speaker and not that great at writing. But give her a test like MAP and she can shine with the knowledge of what we've read and talked about. Now I am worried that DD won't receive any instruction at school and be consigned to round-robin reading of low-level texts until she becomes an "orator" which I feel is simply not possible for her at this age.

DH feels that reading level in school doesn't matter. If she is not in the high group, it is no big deal just as long as she is not in the lowest group. He feels that if she can't read aloud orally then the school is right to stop advancement until she is a perfect oral reader (even though the high reading group according to DD doesn't read aloud during group, very little, mostly silent reading followed by challenging questions). If it's not important for those children, why is it so important for DD? DD states no one in the class reads "like an adult" and they all make mistakes.

What are the opinions here? Is oral reading that important? Is the teacher right in that the levels do not matter? I would think from DD's perception of instruction, it seems obvious to her that what she is reading is not on her "level". For myself, it doesn't seem logical. I believe like Lexile.com states that what level you read at is extremely important. Even from guided reading sites, one can see the huge difference in books. My DD knows when she is reading something "easy" vs. something "hard".

What bothers me most about the whole situation is the thought of sending my child to school where she essentially learns nothing from the provided instruction with teachers telling us to do the work ourselves each night. All the while, other parents children are being challenged and receiving what I perceive as a "better" education even though we all pay the same property taxes.

Here's a perspective: here in the UK, we don't have the concept of lexile levels of books, and our children read better than US children (according to Pisa, by one point ;-) [emoticon indicating that nobody should imagine I actually think this is much of an argument!] So I'm bound to think it's not very important. I wonder whether any other countries have this concept (routinely use it in assigning books to children, I mean)?

I think having a child who learns to read without difficulty is a luxury and should be enjoyed! When my DS entered school already reading fluently, his lovely first teacher said something like "he obviously doesn't need to learn to read, let's get him reading to learn". He's done some "guided reading" of the kind you're talking about, where a group of children talk about a story they're all reading (I remember he got into "trouble" once for reading ahead, because part of what they were doing was discussing what might happen next, and that was spoilt if someone knew). Generally he has just read things that seemed interesting to him, and the teachers' interventions and ours have been mostly suggesting things outside his normal range of choices that we think he might enjoy. It's worked fine for him.

You don't actually say what your DD's oral reading is like? I'd be concerned if she can't read accurately (within reason: the odd change that doesn't change the sense is normal) and with expression when asked to do so. I'd want to understand what was stopping her in that case, and then for most causes, doing plenty of reading aloud to check progress seems reasonable. (If the problem was that she was very shy and couldn't bear to do it in a classroom situation, or something like that, of course, a different course might be needed. But you do need to understand what's going on if she has a problem with reading aloud, IMHO.) Beyond that, my personal opinion is that really good oral reading (the kind that people love to listen to) is a great skill to have, and worth working towards, but not a prerequisite for using reading in other ways. (It certainly is possible for some young children, by the way.)

I'd be concerned if class time were really being spent doing just round robin reading aloud in a group of children with no adult attention and no discussion - but I'd be cautious about taking this at face value!

Lexile.com, of course, would say that lexile levels are important, wouldn't it? :-)