Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Identification, Testing & Assessment Could this be wrong (NWEA)?

Hi guys,

I just received DS8 NWEA report.

Average points for growth is 8. From the beginning of school till the end. He had a much larger point span.

Reading; 16 points

Language Usage; 16 points

Math; 27 points

Could someone have made a mistake? He grew over 3 times the average child? How can a child grow 27 points?

While I'm not familiar with that particular test (our state doesn't do NWEA), it wouldn't surprise me to see a 3-year growth in skills over any given year, particularly in the lower grades. It's also possible he had an "off day" for the beginning-of-year test, so had an artificially low beginning score.

DD6 had 36 point growth in math this year on MAP. Some of that I attribute to her figuring out how to take the test but some of it was due to subject acceleration and actually learning more math. DD8 had 29, 22, and 20 points of growth for K, 1st, and 2nd without subject acceleration but I try to give her challenging work at home. Their reading growth was similar to your son's (ranging from 14 to 18 points and 2 to 3 times the "typical" growth).

Gifted children are capable of great growth but often times aren't getting the curriculum that's a match. If you look at the norms data, a 2nd grade child has to have at least 12 points of growth in math from the beginning of the school year to the end in order to stay at the 99% (205 to 217). That's significantly higher than the average growth and it would make sense that some of the high achievers will have growth a few standard deviations outside the norm.
http://pickens.it.schoolfusion.us/m...ssionid=14d1e9266e4482d198ebc39c6e6bc9c3

Also look at page 78 for 2nd grade Math Growth Estimates and SDs. Starting at 205 gives an average of ~10 and a SD of ~5. The 27 points is between 3 to 4 SD's higher.

His growth is higher than "typical" but I wouldn't necessarily chalk it up to a mistake.

I read at a teacher's website that MAP is less predictable on the high end. One teacher said that in her gifted kids, she can see more than 20pt increase or decrease. My son took the MAP this year for this first time. It'll be interesting to see how he scores next year. The test is only available at the end of the year that I know of so we won't have beginning of the year numbers to compare....just end of year to end of year.

Dazey

Thanks for the info Inky.

D&C, a 20 point swing seems like a lot. I didn't know about the beginning of school NEWA test. I found out about all of this because I had a meeting with school. They pulled him off the 504 program.

This is the first year he has ever taken the NEWA test, so I didn't have any thing to go by. I was surprised to see the what the score was. Plus, he hates math. He always thinks he terrible at it.

I'm seeing a trend at school. Last year in 2nd grade he received an award for the most improved student in his class.

Maybe he needs more? I don't rock the boat at school because he's happy. But, he is the type of kid that will only do what is asked of him. Nothing more, nothing less.

Just got our end of year results and DS also jumped significantly- 14 points in growth in math just from Winter testing and 14 points in Language Usage from Winter testing as well.

I just giggled mostly because he is a mid-year grade skip from 1st to 2nd. The school told us to expect a drop in his scores from beginning to winter because they switch from P-MAP to MAP. But his scores went up. They thought it was a fluke. Then they went up again.

The good thing about NWEA is that it is untimed. So kids can figure out the answer even if they don't know it rote. I think that's an important skill!

Yes, the large jumps are quite possible My dd gained 30 pts in Math and 38 in Reading over the course of the year.

CAMom - I love it! Proved them wrong!

You may also want to consider that the first set of scores may have been an underestimate. My ds actually dropped 9 points from spring 09 to fall 09 -- but then gained 19 points from fall 09 to spring 10. I'm guessing he didn't forget info from spring to fall, just had a bad testing day ... Which makes an impressive but not a true 19-point increase over the school year.

Was the last test your first data point?