Smart Kid but No Inventions😅 Need Help with AAP Appeal!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:AAP is mostly a farce. If you want him to have a shot, YOU invent something and pretend he did, like all the other uber competitive mommies do…

I don't believe prepping is "cheating" because the child is the one taking the exam and getting the score. Period. If that child learns well enough to achieve a great score on the exam, he or she has the ability to do well in the AAP program. AAP is not for geniuses, but for kids willing and able to learn and to work (a little for some, a lot for others).

Parents who prepare work samples and present them as their child's are being dishonest. That's a bridge too far and definitely cheating the process. Most likely, these samples don't count for much anyway, especially if they are outliers compared to the rest of the AAP packet. Perhaps most importantly, you are teaching your child the worst kind of lesson about how to get by in life.

LOL--great rationalization. But the parent prepped work examples are "a bridge too far"...

If a parent completes the work samples, the kid likely is lacking in talent and this will show pretty quickly in the classroom...

Suit yourself. Your child, your choice. Most kids will get some sort of support in their studies, even though yours may not. No tutoring, no SAT prep? I believe it's not cheating to provide a child with resources to master topics and tasks that they will be facing. That's how they learn and working at something is a good practice in various life stages.

DP. You’re cheating if you “prep” your kid for AAP selection (whether that be nnat, cogat, “helping” with work samples, “suggesting” projects, etc.) You believe it’s not cheating to give your kid an advantage over all of the thousands of other kids who don’t cheat.

It’s not cheating in your mind, because it benefits YOUR kid. (Any unfair advantage another parent provides to your kid that you don’t provide for yours is suddenly cheating in your mind, after all).

All the other kids can go to hell, right? Obviously their parents just don’t care as much as you, or they’re too stupid to want the best education for their own kids. It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with other people having integrity and you having none, right?

FYI, “believing” something not to be true doesn’t make it not true.

You can "believe" it's cheating, but that doesn't make it true. I believe you are completely incorrect and reject your position that this is a matter of integrity or cheating. Your position is wrong. Period.

The test is puzzle games. Letting your kid play puzzle games is not cheating. Are parents supposed to not let their kids do any pattern matching or logic games at all until after 2nd grade, when they complete the nnat and cogat? That's a ridiculous and wrong take.

Your theory even goes farther. As I parent, am I no longer allowed to teach my kid math and writing, or anything else, at home because it BENEFITS only my kid, and not other kids? And that's an unfair AAP advantage as well? Your take gets more and more ridiculous as I write this. Your opinion is just, so wrong, on so many levels. You should stop and reevalute your logic here before preaching to others.

You are pretending to argue something totally reasonable in order to suggest the poster is off base. There is nothing wrong with teaching your kid stuff. There IS something wrong with doing their work samples for them or sending them to a 6-week CogAT camp.

If just going over a couple of tests to understand the format to make sure no silly mistakes are made, that's not cheating in my mind, but that's not really what we're talking about here.

Is anyone actually doing that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:AAP is mostly a farce. If you want him to have a shot, YOU invent something and pretend he did, like all the other uber competitive mommies do…

I don't believe prepping is "cheating" because the child is the one taking the exam and getting the score. Period. If that child learns well enough to achieve a great score on the exam, he or she has the ability to do well in the AAP program. AAP is not for geniuses, but for kids willing and able to learn and to work (a little for some, a lot for others).

Parents who prepare work samples and present them as their child's are being dishonest. That's a bridge too far and definitely cheating the process. Most likely, these samples don't count for much anyway, especially if they are outliers compared to the rest of the AAP packet. Perhaps most importantly, you are teaching your child the worst kind of lesson about how to get by in life.

LOL--great rationalization. But the parent prepped work examples are "a bridge too far"...

If a parent completes the work samples, the kid likely is lacking in talent and this will show pretty quickly in the classroom...

Suit yourself. Your child, your choice. Most kids will get some sort of support in their studies, even though yours may not. No tutoring, no SAT prep? I believe it's not cheating to provide a child with resources to master topics and tasks that they will be facing. That's how they learn and working at something is a good practice in various life stages.

DP. You’re cheating if you “prep” your kid for AAP selection (whether that be nnat, cogat, “helping” with work samples, “suggesting” projects, etc.) You believe it’s not cheating to give your kid an advantage over all of the thousands of other kids who don’t cheat.

It’s not cheating in your mind, because it benefits YOUR kid. (Any unfair advantage another parent provides to your kid that you don’t provide for yours is suddenly cheating in your mind, after all).

All the other kids can go to hell, right? Obviously their parents just don’t care as much as you, or they’re too stupid to want the best education for their own kids. It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with other people having integrity and you having none, right?

FYI, “believing” something not to be true doesn’t make it not true.

You can "believe" it's cheating, but that doesn't make it true. I believe you are completely incorrect and reject your position that this is a matter of integrity or cheating. Your position is wrong. Period.

The test is puzzle games. Letting your kid play puzzle games is not cheating. Are parents supposed to not let their kids do any pattern matching or logic games at all until after 2nd grade, when they complete the nnat and cogat? That's a ridiculous and wrong take.

Your theory even goes farther. As I parent, am I no longer allowed to teach my kid math and writing, or anything else, at home because it BENEFITS only my kid, and not other kids? And that's an unfair AAP advantage as well? Your take gets more and more ridiculous as I write this. Your opinion is just, so wrong, on so many levels. You should stop and reevalute your logic here before preaching to others.

You are pretending to argue something totally reasonable in order to suggest the poster is off base. There is nothing wrong with teaching your kid stuff. There IS something wrong with doing their work samples for them or sending them to a 6-week CogAT camp.

If just going over a couple of tests to understand the format to make sure no silly mistakes are made, that's not cheating in my mind, but that's not really what we're talking about here.

Is anyone actually doing that?

I have friends who teach in ES during COVID. They spent a good amount of time that they had to call a parent and tell them that they could hear the parent helping the kid with a test, think iReady and the like, was crazy. The parents were turning off their kid's camera so the parents could do the kids work. In ES. There are parents who will keep their kid home from certain tests so that the kid has more time to study and, hopefully, get feedback from others on what was on the test.

Yes, there are parents submitting work samples that the parents completed. And there are parents prepping kids for the WISC. The schools know that so when they see things that are an anomaly, like a high test score with good but not great iReady or class work, they don't trust the test score.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here Original Poster here.
Oh, guys—you’ve turned my post into a battleground!

I really don’t want to continue the back-and-forth, but let’s be honest: if you can guarantee that no one prepares their child, then I won’t either. That would make it a fair competition. Otherwise, I’ll prepare my child too.

To be clear, this isn’t just about preparation. Some kids just aren’t natural test takers. As I mentioned, my child didn’t take the test seriously at first grade and was just answering randomly. It wasn’t until second grade, when I taught him how to approach exams seriously, that things changed. For example, his iReady scores jumped from the 80s to 99%.

Some parents give their children IQ books just to keep them busy—not necessarily to prepare them. Their kids naturally start to understand patterns and how to approach certain types of questions. So why shouldn’t I do the same for my child? There’s nothing wrong or illegal about that.

So do the gifted work samples for him like all the other mommies who want to keep their kids away from the poors. Why are you even asking?

I don’t understand why there’s a fight here. I’m simply asking whether i-Ready would support my child’s appeal. I don’t need anyone’s permission to prepare my kid for any test.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here Original Poster here.
Oh, guys—you’ve turned my post into a battleground!

I really don’t want to continue the back-and-forth, but let’s be honest: if you can guarantee that no one prepares their child, then I won’t either. That would make it a fair competition. Otherwise, I’ll prepare my child too.

To be clear, this isn’t just about preparation. Some kids just aren’t natural test takers. As I mentioned, my child didn’t take the test seriously at first grade and was just answering randomly. It wasn’t until second grade, when I taught him how to approach exams seriously, that things changed. For example, his iReady scores jumped from the 80s to 99%.

Some parents give their children IQ books just to keep them busy—not necessarily to prepare them. Their kids naturally start to understand patterns and how to approach certain types of questions. So why shouldn’t I do the same for my child? There’s nothing wrong or illegal about that.

So do the gifted work samples for him like all the other mommies who want to keep their kids away from the poors. Why are you even asking?

I don’t understand why there’s a fight here. I’m simply asking whether i-Ready would support my child’s appeal. I don’t need anyone’s permission to prepare my kid for any test.

I’m not fighting with you. I’m telling you the answer (just like you’ll tell your “gifted” snowflake). Take it or leave it.

[Anonymous]

To the OP: The parent samples we submitted for LIV consideration where pictures of our child combining different materials to make different types of tracks and experimenting with how the different parts worked. He included drums to see if he could bounce items from one part of the track to another. He used different height drums. He used carbdoard tubes, plastic bits, wood bits, and paper bits. The sample included a few sentences at each slide describing what he was experimenting with. We wanted to show that he was curious and experimenting at home while playing.

Our thought was that the school was going to provide worksheets and written work. His test scores, 135 on the NNAT and CoGAT, were solid. His grades where all 4s. Parent Teacher conferences had always been positive, so we were not worried about anything coming from the school. We thought the creative play and his attempts at engineering and experimentation in play showed his curiosity outside of the classroom. I know he is not the only kid to do these things, it wasn't that we thought this was a sign of genius or anything. The parent letter talked about his outside activities and comments he made that tied together hiking with what he had learned in science or what he was reading and how he would mention how it tied to what they were learning at school.

Your kid doesn't have to be inventing anything but show their curiosity and how it ties school to home activities and play.

He was accepted in the initial round, he had strong GBRSs (predating Hope by 2 years) but they included comments on areas he was weak but also commented on how he compensated for those weaknesses. I wish the HOPE scores allowed the Teacher comments, I appreciated the context that the comments gave. Some of my friends less so, their comment was that it made them feel their kid was very average.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To the OP: The parent samples we submitted for LIV consideration where pictures of our child combining different materials to make different types of tracks and experimenting with how the different parts worked. He included drums to see if he could bounce items from one part of the track to another. He used different height drums. He used carbdoard tubes, plastic bits, wood bits, and paper bits. The sample included a few sentences at each slide describing what he was experimenting with. We wanted to show that he was curious and experimenting at home while playing.

Our thought was that the school was going to provide worksheets and written work. His test scores, 135 on the NNAT and CoGAT, were solid. His grades where all 4s. Parent Teacher conferences had always been positive, so we were not worried about anything coming from the school. We thought the creative play and his attempts at engineering and experimentation in play showed his curiosity outside of the classroom. I know he is not the only kid to do these things, it wasn't that we thought this was a sign of genius or anything. The parent letter talked about his outside activities and comments he made that tied together hiking with what he had learned in science or what he was reading and how he would mention how it tied to what they were learning at school.

Your kid doesn't have to be inventing anything but show their curiosity and how it ties school to home activities and play.

He was accepted in the initial round, he had strong GBRSs (predating Hope by 2 years) but they included comments on areas he was weak but also commented on how he compensated for those weaknesses. I wish the HOPE scores allowed the Teacher comments, I appreciated the context that the comments gave. Some of my friends less so, their comment was that it made them feel their kid was very average.

They got rid of GBRS partially because the teachers complained writing comments took too long.

Also I think if a parent is offended that their kid is average...that's on the parent. I never read the comments on my kids' GBRS, but it's fine if my kids are merely average (or in some areas, below average). They're still my beloved kids.

[Anonymous]

Should I include the latest report card in my kid’s appeal so they can see third quarter grades?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Should I include the latest report card in my kid’s appeal so they can see third quarter grades?

I believe that they will have that information. I don't think the grades matter all that much. Most of the kids under consideration are getting some 3's but mainly 4's. Maybe if your kid had 2's that became 4's but then I would address what happened there and explain how you helped your child improve their classwork.

They got rid of GBRS partially because the teachers complained writing comments took too long.

Also I think if a parent is offended that their kid is average...that's on the parent. I never read the comments on my kids' GBRS, but it's fine if my kids are merely average (or in some areas, below average). They're still my beloved kids.

I get that the comments took a long time and that is why they got rid of them but I think that is a shame. It is the one time in ES that I felt that I was getting good feedback on my child's progress and what he was doing in the classroom.

As for the parents, we all love our kids and think that they are great. It is hard to read comments that are mainly saying your kid is average, especially when you have high test scores and your kid is doing well in school. You are looking at data that says your kid is smart, they are doing well in school, and then you have comments that say that your kid is average. The comment tells you that your kid does what they are asked to do and no more, even when given the chance. None of my friends who received those type of comments felt that they were wrong, they knew their kid, but it still upset them. The few friends who talked to us about this had kids who could take Algebra 1 in MS and choose Math 7H instead because they know their kids. Their kids could totally rock the class but has no interest in doing harder work then they have to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Should I include the latest report card in my kid’s appeal so they can see third quarter grades?

You can summarize the latest report card. Including it is unnecessary.

As for work samples, find math kangaroo questions here, select grade 3-4 questions for 5 points.

For writing sample, I find it useful to do a drawing and a writing on a subject. Google 3rd grade writing prompt, personally I think the best prompts are hypothetical ones that shows the child's imagination, but you should try different kind to see which come out the best.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Should I include the latest report card in my kid’s appeal so they can see third quarter grades?

I believe that they will have that information. I don't think the grades matter all that much. Most of the kids under consideration are getting some 3's but mainly 4's. Maybe if your kid had 2's that became 4's but then I would address what happened there and explain how you helped your child improve their classwork.

They got rid of GBRS partially because the teachers complained writing comments took too long.

Also I think if a parent is offended that their kid is average...that's on the parent. I never read the comments on my kids' GBRS, but it's fine if my kids are merely average (or in some areas, below average). They're still my beloved kids.

I get that the comments took a long time and that is why they got rid of them but I think that is a shame. It is the one time in ES that I felt that I was getting good feedback on my child's progress and what he was doing in the classroom.

As for the parents, we all love our kids and think that they are great. It is hard to read comments that are mainly saying your kid is average, especially when you have high test scores and your kid is doing well in school. You are looking at data that says your kid is smart, they are doing well in school, and then you have comments that say that your kid is average. The comment tells you that your kid does what they are asked to do and no more, even when given the chance. None of my friends who received those type of comments felt that they were wrong, they knew their kid, but it still upset them. The few friends who talked to us about this had kids who could take Algebra 1 in MS and choose Math 7H instead because they know their kids. Their kids could totally rock the class but has no interest in doing harder work then they have to.

They won’t have any information for the appeal that you don’t send. They will have the original packet. If you want report cards, iready etc from 2nd and 3rd quarters, then you need to include it.

[Anonymous]

Ask your school for the full score report for iReady. It could be that your child is advanced in all areas and low in just one area that brought the overall score down. Depending on the timing of spring iReady scores you can include that too (the school has the score immediately once the test is complete, you can request the full report). Look for other scores to include as well such as the DSA (developmental spelling assessment). Look for Mars Math problems from several grades ahead and have them work on that.