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

You may wish to keep a list of books she reads on her own outside of school, including their lexile levels.

You may wish to know the color-name of her assigned group, and ask DD for names of other kiddos in her group, to invite them for a play date or movie-and-popcorn party, etc. Sometimes parents will stay and visit amongst themselves, rather than just dropping kiddos off.

Ugh! This presumes a one-size-fits-all amongst the gifted kiddos. Some have found it more challenging/supportive to cluster pupils by readiness/ability without regard to age/grade, thereby creating multi-age/multi-grade classes of similar readiness/ability.

Optimally this would be based on a student's developmental needs (readiness/ability).

While this is standard, it provides a history, specific to your child. Meanwhile proactive information with respect to the process would manage expectations and provide transparency. This might include the learning outcomes for your DC's ability group in each subject, having a syllabus or schedule of lessons, receiving a weekly update pertaining to your DC's ability groups (rather than a generic weekly update which does not resemble your daughter's lived experience in the classroom).

This might be something to politely ask about.

Do they have interests in common (clubs, sports, etc) which might bring them together outside of school?

How does your daughter feel about school, friends, etc?

Sorry to leave this thread hanging. This school year has been a challenge and for my own sanity, I had to give it a rest for awhile.

So many good points Indigo. This year I have felt very isolated from DD's school experience. Some parents in the class I do know and unfortunately to say do not really click with them myself. DD doesn't even know the names of the kids in G&T and none live in our neighborhood. None were at music classes even though we go to a prominent studio here locally. The school has over 1,000 children but most activities revolve around sports which DD is not interested in or cannot do due to effects of hypotonia.


She only has 1 friend this year in class. The oldest girl in the class. DD says she's the only one who is nice to her. They both took the CogAT together (even though her friend is 1 year older than DD) - no idea how the other girl did. DD missed too many and only got a 122 and we were told this score did not make the cut for math. We will not get a report until the end of the school year. No idea of what version of test or percentile. No idea if this score means we should give up and accept no acceleration of math.

DD has regressed some (mainly spelling and writing because they use iPads with auto correct!). We enrich after school as her math is way out of alignment from her MAP RIT goals from the beginning of the year. I realized, being somewhat ahead is an awful spot to be. You always get an A on the test and you never need think or spend any time. But you have to come home and take it upon yourself to learn. Sometimes it works and it's OK. Some days it doesn't go as well and you have to accept the shortcomings.

The district high ability coordinator encouraged us to speak with the principal to see what could be done for next year. When we requested a meeting, the principal will only meet with us 3 1/2 weeks from now, practically the end of school. She is new this year and has made changes to G&T. All information about the G&T program and staff has been removed from the school webpage. Unless you have been at the school for some time and know who the teachers are, you would not know the school even had G&T.

I was reading the book Losing Our Minds: Gifted Children Left Behind by Deborah Ruf. It was interesting and had so much of the same information that I've seen in the threads here over and over. It's probably been recommended by someone but I did not notice it before.

Some of the information in the book worried me. Right at the cusp of 3rd grade with little support from the district, the effect seems magnified to increasingly conform or risk ostracization. Then Losing Our Minds states that the whole of middle school is not about teaching but rather functions for socialization. What lies ahead for those who never quite fit before?

Anyway, Indigo and all others, I do thank you for taking a little of your time to read and respond. It's much appreciated and the information you've all provided along with advice from the advocacy forum has and will continue to help us.

Thanks for the update. While school may be uninspiring at this time, you may wish to keep talking up a positive future in which your kiddo gets to study what she wants to and is interested in. So glad she has one friendly classmate. Many gifted adults share that they first found "their tribe" in college/university. Having something to look forward to helps immensely. Both parents and kids often find intellectual affirmation through books. While hypotonia may keep your DC from sports, is there a form of dance or yoga which she may enjoy?

If your daughter has interest, keep seeking out fun ways to learn at home, through games, an extracurricular group activity, or competition.

Some families have fun choosing a word of the day (or week) for each other and discussing meaning and spelling. There are great books on etymology, word prefixes/roots/suffixes.

Yes, this is the trap, and it is so easy to be lulled into complacency.

Your child is very fortunate to have a tuned-in parent!

I've been hearing this frequently.

Camps and summer classes can be ways of finding academic/intellectual peers.

If you believe social skills could be improved, there are wonderful books... if your kiddo is more mature and is mentally occupied with things more in tune with older kids, extracurricular activities may provide an opportunity to mix with older kids.

Whatever your kiddo is interested in... from collecting soil samples, to bug identification, to astronomy, to looking at things under a microscope and sketching them... just being mentally occupied can be powerful medicine, and help form a sense of personal identity. You may wish to create a portfolio of kiddo's interests/accomplishments. Great to review and bolster one's spirit when in a plateau phase.

Hang in there! You are not alone.

Another update in this thread.

DD7 took the first portion of the end of year MAP test in the regular testing lab and did well on math (up to 227) putting her at 99%.

Math is taken first.

Then, she took reading. Her score took a huge hit. She had been at 99 and fell to 90th with a growth of only 2 points for the whole year. I asked what happened. It seems the teacher singled her out to take the reading portion in the general classroom instead of the testing lab like all the other students and was rushing her. All the kids were talking, some were put to use stapling papers and making banging noises, and there were so many distractions she said she couldn't concentrate at all. She bombed.

I feel it was intentional sabotage and I'm very upset about it.

This is a teacher who told me over the phone that DD could not do division when I complained the work was not challenging for her and that she was bored. She also made DD cry in front of the class when she lost one of her spelling lists and gave me a call at home to try and get me to denigrate DD as well.

School is now out. I didn't understand what happened until I saw DD's test results in her folder when she came home on the last day. I'm not sure what can be done. I would like to see some disciplinary action, but DH says it would never happen.

I'm just disgusted with the whole thing. We had a horrible year.