99th percentile in MAPS test

[Anonymous]

Apologies in advance for what may be interpreted as a humblebrag - I’m really just trying to understand what the MAPS scores mean and figure that an anonymous forum is the best place

One of my kids scored well above the 99tg percentile in the MAPS test, at what appears to be the 50th percentile for a few grades ahead. As we think about summer math materials, should we get them for the grade where he’s at the 50th percentile? We’re at a school that has a policy of not recommending/teaching content ahead of grade level, so his teacher is not able to answer this question.

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Also, when we asked the school earlier what this kid’s scores meant, we were told that it just signaled that he was likely to meet grade-level standards. Which we already knew - we didn’t need a test to tell us that.

Anyways, thanks for any help you can provide! We just want to make sure that we are at least getting him the right materials to ensure he’s learning this summer (and we don’t do mathnasium etc that could probably help us).

[Anonymous]

Just let your kid be a kid. If you have them do anything over the summer, just have them do math game sites like Prodigy or Boddle that are adaptive and will meet him where he's at. The score only means he knows well above the content for the grade level, and was able to apply his problem solving skills to higher-level content.

[Anonymous]

What age/grade? The tests change so you can’t really compare to higher grades unless it’s the same test.

[Anonymous]

What age? My kid would always get 99 in ELA for example in the early grades just because he was an early reader. Easy to be 99 in K if you can just read fluently. Doesn’t mean much. 99 in 5th grade probably more significant.

[Anonymous]

A few notes:

MAP is nationally normed, so that is 99th percentile of the entire country, from Baltimore to rural Idaho. So, it's 99th percentile of a country that routinely fails its youngest learners.

The scores are not always easy to compare across grade levels. The test changes in 3rd and 6th, for example.

Finally, MAP is not an intelligence test, it's a test of exposure. So, if you casually cook with your first grader and help them understand measuring ingredients (ratios), they'll do very well on that section of the test.