MAP-R & Reading Group Assignment

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When my dd was younger, she was stuck on a reading level for a while and I asked the teacher about it. She said she was good at oral reading and discussing the book, but her reading level was constrained by her writing-- the measure for reading level was based on a written response, and her responses weren't meeting the expectation in various ways (I think it was about not writing enough details, etc though I don't recall exactly). So it could be that the skills tested in MAP-R aren't the same as the skills for reading-level assignment. It is a good question to ask at the November conferences, along with what skills you can work on to move her up.

Regardless of your opinion about your daughters writing ability OP, this is the most likely reason for the current reading level placement. All of my kids were advanced readers and several actual reading levels above their assigned reading group because their analysis skills as demonstrated by their written responses didn't match their reading level. Sure, they were bored by their reading group books, but they had plenty of other reading books at higher levels they read at the same time. It's not going to hurt your daughter to be in the assigned reading group.

Actually MAP are comprehensive and widely acclaimed standardized test used nationally and often takes up to an hour. They are proven to provide quantitative and objective metrics. Mclass like C2.0 is another MCPS special. As has been mentioned elsewhere, it is rarely adminstered correctly or thorough. A teacher has a child read a short story and has them answer one or two questions. It is usually completed in under 10 minutes. Bottom line. MAP is a more reliable measure of student achievement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When my dd was younger, she was stuck on a reading level for a while and I asked the teacher about it. She said she was good at oral reading and discussing the book, but her reading level was constrained by her writing-- the measure for reading level was based on a written response, and her responses weren't meeting the expectation in various ways (I think it was about not writing enough details, etc though I don't recall exactly). So it could be that the skills tested in MAP-R aren't the same as the skills for reading-level assignment. It is a good question to ask at the November conferences, along with what skills you can work on to move her up.

Regardless of your opinion about your daughters writing ability OP, this is the most likely reason for the current reading level placement. All of my kids were advanced readers and several actual reading levels above their assigned reading group because their analysis skills as demonstrated by their written responses didn't match their reading level. Sure, they were bored by their reading group books, but they had plenty of other reading books at higher levels they read at the same time. It's not going to hurt your daughter to be in the assigned reading group.

The most likely reason is the child's previous teacher had them at the previous level last year and this is the next step in the progression. I remember when my DS was in first grade the teacher assured me they were at the right level even when I was skeptical. A few months later the resource teacher does an honest assessment and "oops your child is seven levels higher than we previously thought..."

The problem is your child spent months in a lower group learning absolutely nothing. The county failed to provide them with the education to which they're entitled largely because of sloppy assessment practices.

Unfortunately, this is all too common. The school is doing their best but not infallible. Things like this happen and it's your job as a parent to advocate for your children when you are aware of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When my dd was younger, she was stuck on a reading level for a while and I asked the teacher about it. She said she was good at oral reading and discussing the book, but her reading level was constrained by her writing-- the measure for reading level was based on a written response, and her responses weren't meeting the expectation in various ways (I think it was about not writing enough details, etc though I don't recall exactly). So it could be that the skills tested in MAP-R aren't the same as the skills for reading-level assignment. It is a good question to ask at the November conferences, along with what skills you can work on to move her up.

Regardless of your opinion about your daughters writing ability OP, this is the most likely reason for the current reading level placement. All of my kids were advanced readers and several actual reading levels above their assigned reading group because their analysis skills as demonstrated by their written responses didn't match their reading level. Sure, they were bored by their reading group books, but they had plenty of other reading books at higher levels they read at the same time. It's not going to hurt your daughter to be in the assigned reading group.

Actually MAP are comprehensive and widely acclaimed standardized test used nationally and often takes up to an hour. They are proven to provide quantitative and objective metrics. Mclass like C2.0 is another MCPS special. As has been mentioned elsewhere, it is rarely adminstered correctly or thorough. A teacher has a child read a short story and has them answer one or two questions. It is usually completed in under 10 minutes. Bottom line. MAP is a more reliable measure of student achievement.

I have to agree. The SAT is also a multiple choice test. That doesn’t diminish its significance. The MAP-R is an adaptive test that evaluates comprehension and vocabulary as well as anything. It doesn’t assess writing but I think that’s a different group at least at my kids school. My understanding is even Mclass is supposed to only look at the content not grammar or spelling simply to assess a child’s grasp of the material (comprehension) not their writing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When my dd was younger, she was stuck on a reading level for a while and I asked the teacher about it. She said she was good at oral reading and discussing the book, but her reading level was constrained by her writing-- the measure for reading level was based on a written response, and her responses weren't meeting the expectation in various ways (I think it was about not writing enough details, etc though I don't recall exactly). So it could be that the skills tested in MAP-R aren't the same as the skills for reading-level assignment. It is a good question to ask at the November conferences, along with what skills you can work on to move her up.

Regardless of your opinion about your daughters writing ability OP, this is the most likely reason for the current reading level placement. All of my kids were advanced readers and several actual reading levels above their assigned reading group because their analysis skills as demonstrated by their written responses didn't match their reading level. Sure, they were bored by their reading group books, but they had plenty of other reading books at higher levels they read at the same time. It's not going to hurt your daughter to be in the assigned reading group.

The most likely reason is the child's previous teacher had them at the previous level last year and this is the next step in the progression. I remember when my DS was in first grade the teacher assured me they were at the right level even when I was skeptical. A few months later the resource teacher does an honest assessment and "oops your child is seven levels higher than we previously thought..."

The problem is your child spent months in a lower group learning absolutely nothing. The county failed to provide them with the education to which they're entitled largely because of sloppy assessment practices.

Unfortunately, this is all too common. The school is doing their best but not infallible. Things like this happen and it's your job as a parent to advocate for your children when you are aware of it.

That’s a problem if your child learns absolutely nothing even in a group lower than what their own decoding skills are. There is always something to be learned. New vocabulary, inferencing skills, predicting skills etc. It’s complete BS that you believe there’s nothing to be learned. Look deeper. Decoding is one skill.

[Anonymous]

I’ve posted this here before, but I have twins who have been in different classes at the same elementary school and they have very similar MAP-R scores, but they’re never at the same instructional level, as reported on report cards. One time, Twin B will have a higher MAP-R score, but a lower instructional level. The next time they take MAP-R, Twin A will have the higher score but the lower instructional level. There is never a perfect correlation. In our experience, instructional levels have much more to do with the make up of the class than your own child’s individual ability.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When my dd was younger, she was stuck on a reading level for a while and I asked the teacher about it. She said she was good at oral reading and discussing the book, but her reading level was constrained by her writing-- the measure for reading level was based on a written response, and her responses weren't meeting the expectation in various ways (I think it was about not writing enough details, etc though I don't recall exactly). So it could be that the skills tested in MAP-R aren't the same as the skills for reading-level assignment. It is a good question to ask at the November conferences, along with what skills you can work on to move her up.

Regardless of your opinion about your daughters writing ability OP, this is the most likely reason for the current reading level placement. All of my kids were advanced readers and several actual reading levels above their assigned reading group because their analysis skills as demonstrated by their written responses didn't match their reading level. Sure, they were bored by their reading group books, but they had plenty of other reading books at higher levels they read at the same time. It's not going to hurt your daughter to be in the assigned reading group.

The most likely reason is the child's previous teacher had them at the previous level last year and this is the next step in the progression. I remember when my DS was in first grade the teacher assured me they were at the right level even when I was skeptical. A few months later the resource teacher does an honest assessment and "oops your child is seven levels higher than we previously thought..."

The problem is your child spent months in a lower group learning absolutely nothing. The county failed to provide them with the education to which they're entitled largely because of sloppy assessment practices.

Unfortunately, this is all too common. The school is doing their best but not infallible. Things like this happen and it's your job as a parent to advocate for your children when you are aware of it.

That’s a problem if your child learns absolutely nothing even in a group lower than what their own decoding skills are. There is always something to be learned. New vocabulary, inferencing skills, predicting skills etc. It’s complete BS that you believe there’s nothing to be learned. Look deeper. Decoding is one skill.

Well in my DS's case he was in a group 7 levels below his actual level. It wasn't until the resource teacher assessed him they realized this. It possible he may have learned something, but nowhere near what he would've learned if they had bothered to assess him correctly at the beginning of the year. As far as I can tell, this started when the teacher just rubber stamped the assessment from the previous year which is probably fine in a lot of cases but wasn't in this case. The real tragedy is I tried to bring this to their attention but was dismissed, but ultimately the resource teacher vindicated my instincts. This is something she came to on her own without any input from us. The point being is this process is flawed and kids often fall through the cracks. The upshot of these failures is kids don't always receive the rigorous education to which their entitled and this could be avoided if the school was more receptive to parental input.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When my dd was younger, she was stuck on a reading level for a while and I asked the teacher about it. She said she was good at oral reading and discussing the book, but her reading level was constrained by her writing-- the measure for reading level was based on a written response, and her responses weren't meeting the expectation in various ways (I think it was about not writing enough details, etc though I don't recall exactly). So it could be that the skills tested in MAP-R aren't the same as the skills for reading-level assignment. It is a good question to ask at the November conferences, along with what skills you can work on to move her up.

Regardless of your opinion about your daughters writing ability OP, this is the most likely reason for the current reading level placement. All of my kids were advanced readers and several actual reading levels above their assigned reading group because their analysis skills as demonstrated by their written responses didn't match their reading level. Sure, they were bored by their reading group books, but they had plenty of other reading books at higher levels they read at the same time. It's not going to hurt your daughter to be in the assigned reading group.

The most likely reason is the child's previous teacher had them at the previous level last year and this is the next step in the progression. I remember when my DS was in first grade the teacher assured me they were at the right level even when I was skeptical. A few months later the resource teacher does an honest assessment and "oops your child is seven levels higher than we previously thought..."

The problem is your child spent months in a lower group learning absolutely nothing. The county failed to provide them with the education to which they're entitled largely because of sloppy assessment practices.

Unfortunately, this is all too common. The school is doing their best but not infallible. Things like this happen and it's your job as a parent to advocate for your children when you are aware of it.

That’s a problem if your child learns absolutely nothing even in a group lower than what their own decoding skills are. There is always something to be learned. New vocabulary, inferencing skills, predicting skills etc. It’s complete BS that you believe there’s nothing to be learned. Look deeper. Decoding is one skill.

Well in my DS's case he was in a group 7 levels below his actual level. It wasn't until the resource teacher assessed him they realized this. It possible he may have learned something, but nowhere near what he would've learned if they had bothered to assess him correctly at the beginning of the year. As far as I can tell, this started when the teacher just rubber stamped the assessment from the previous year which is probably fine in a lot of cases but wasn't in this case. The real tragedy is I tried to bring this to their attention but was dismissed, but ultimately the resource teacher vindicated my instincts. This is something she came to on her own without any input from us. The point being is this process is flawed and kids often fall through the cracks. The upshot of these failures is kids don't always receive the rigorous education to which their entitled and this could be avoided if the school was more receptive to parental input.

We've been there too. It's like the teaching teams and administration have one bad case of oppositional defiance.

[Anonymous]

I’ve also wondered if the top group is mainly girls, if the teacher will sometimes move a girl down a group to break up the boys. I know my daughter regularly gets moved to sit between boys.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ve also wondered if the top group is mainly girls, if the teacher will sometimes move a girl down a group to break up the boys. I know my daughter regularly gets moved to sit between boys.

My son has always been in the top group with mainly other boys.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When my dd was younger, she was stuck on a reading level for a while and I asked the teacher about it. She said she was good at oral reading and discussing the book, but her reading level was constrained by her writing-- the measure for reading level was based on a written response, and her responses weren't meeting the expectation in various ways (I think it was about not writing enough details, etc though I don't recall exactly). So it could be that the skills tested in MAP-R aren't the same as the skills for reading-level assignment. It is a good question to ask at the November conferences, along with what skills you can work on to move her up.

Nebulous excuses are often given to avoid changes which could prove inconvenient. Sure, it's possible, but if they're suggesting this, I'd ask for concrete examples to illustrate before accepting it.

My impression is the MAP-R is a more comprehensive, consistent and reliable metric than the mclass which is typically knocked out in under 10-15 minutes by an often harried classroom teacher. It does a much better job measuring a child's comprehension than answering 1 or 2 questions from a single story.

It's not nebulous it's how the testing system works for mirl. If you can't pass the writing you can't move up.

[Anonymous]

When do you get the MAP scores? My kid took it in the last week or two but no scores online yet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When do you get the MAP scores? My kid took it in the last week or two but no scores online yet.

They won’t be online for weeks. Either your child remembered their score or you can ask their teacher.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When my dd was younger, she was stuck on a reading level for a while and I asked the teacher about it. She said she was good at oral reading and discussing the book, but her reading level was constrained by her writing-- the measure for reading level was based on a written response, and her responses weren't meeting the expectation in various ways (I think it was about not writing enough details, etc though I don't recall exactly). So it could be that the skills tested in MAP-R aren't the same as the skills for reading-level assignment. It is a good question to ask at the November conferences, along with what skills you can work on to move her up.

Nebulous excuses are often given to avoid changes which could prove inconvenient. Sure, it's possible, but if they're suggesting this, I'd ask for concrete examples to illustrate before accepting it.

My impression is the MAP-R is a more comprehensive, consistent and reliable metric than the mclass which is typically knocked out in under 10-15 minutes by an often harried classroom teacher. It does a much better job measuring a child's comprehension than answering 1 or 2 questions from a single story.

It's not nebulous it's how the testing system works for mirl. If you can't pass the writing you can't move up.

I thought they 86’d MIRL along with reading levels for grades 3 to 5. There was a thread about this a couple weeks ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When my dd was younger, she was stuck on a reading level for a while and I asked the teacher about it. She said she was good at oral reading and discussing the book, but her reading level was constrained by her writing-- the measure for reading level was based on a written response, and her responses weren't meeting the expectation in various ways (I think it was about not writing enough details, etc though I don't recall exactly). So it could be that the skills tested in MAP-R aren't the same as the skills for reading-level assignment. It is a good question to ask at the November conferences, along with what skills you can work on to move her up.

Regardless of your opinion about your daughters writing ability OP, this is the most likely reason for the current reading level placement. All of my kids were advanced readers and several actual reading levels above their assigned reading group because their analysis skills as demonstrated by their written responses didn't match their reading level. Sure, they were bored by their reading group books, but they had plenty of other reading books at higher levels they read at the same time. It's not going to hurt your daughter to be in the assigned reading group.

The most likely reason is the child's previous teacher had them at the previous level last year and this is the next step in the progression. I remember when my DS was in first grade the teacher assured me they were at the right level even when I was skeptical. A few months later the resource teacher does an honest assessment and "oops your child is seven levels higher than we previously thought..."

The problem is your child spent months in a lower group learning absolutely nothing. The county failed to provide them with the education to which they're entitled largely because of sloppy assessment practices.

Unfortunately, this is all too common. The school is doing their best but not infallible. Things like this happen and it's your job as a parent to advocate for your children when you are aware of it.

That’s a problem if your child learns absolutely nothing even in a group lower than what their own decoding skills are. There is always something to be learned. New vocabulary, inferencing skills, predicting skills etc. It’s complete BS that you believe there’s nothing to be learned. Look deeper. Decoding is one skill.

Well in my DS's case he was in a group 7 levels below his actual level. It wasn't until the resource teacher assessed him they realized this. It possible he may have learned something, but nowhere near what he would've learned if they had bothered to assess him correctly at the beginning of the year. As far as I can tell, this started when the teacher just rubber stamped the assessment from the previous year which is probably fine in a lot of cases but wasn't in this case. The real tragedy is I tried to bring this to their attention but was dismissed, but ultimately the resource teacher vindicated my instincts. This is something she came to on her own without any input from us. The point being is this process is flawed and kids often fall through the cracks. The upshot of these failures is kids don't always receive the rigorous education to which their entitled and this could be avoided if the school was more receptive to parental input.

Not excusing this -- but do you really think there will be some long-term adverse impact due to this period of time your child wasn't in the right reading group in first grade?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When my dd was younger, she was stuck on a reading level for a while and I asked the teacher about it. She said she was good at oral reading and discussing the book, but her reading level was constrained by her writing-- the measure for reading level was based on a written response, and her responses weren't meeting the expectation in various ways (I think it was about not writing enough details, etc though I don't recall exactly). So it could be that the skills tested in MAP-R aren't the same as the skills for reading-level assignment. It is a good question to ask at the November conferences, along with what skills you can work on to move her up.

Regardless of your opinion about your daughters writing ability OP, this is the most likely reason for the current reading level placement. All of my kids were advanced readers and several actual reading levels above their assigned reading group because their analysis skills as demonstrated by their written responses didn't match their reading level. Sure, they were bored by their reading group books, but they had plenty of other reading books at higher levels they read at the same time. It's not going to hurt your daughter to be in the assigned reading group.

The most likely reason is the child's previous teacher had them at the previous level last year and this is the next step in the progression. I remember when my DS was in first grade the teacher assured me they were at the right level even when I was skeptical. A few months later the resource teacher does an honest assessment and "oops your child is seven levels higher than we previously thought..."

The problem is your child spent months in a lower group learning absolutely nothing. The county failed to provide them with the education to which they're entitled largely because of sloppy assessment practices.

Unfortunately, this is all too common. The school is doing their best but not infallible. Things like this happen and it's your job as a parent to advocate for your children when you are aware of it.

That’s a problem if your child learns absolutely nothing even in a group lower than what their own decoding skills are. There is always something to be learned. New vocabulary, inferencing skills, predicting skills etc. It’s complete BS that you believe there’s nothing to be learned. Look deeper. Decoding is one skill.

Well in my DS's case he was in a group 7 levels below his actual level. It wasn't until the resource teacher assessed him they realized this. It possible he may have learned something, but nowhere near what he would've learned if they had bothered to assess him correctly at the beginning of the year. As far as I can tell, this started when the teacher just rubber stamped the assessment from the previous year which is probably fine in a lot of cases but wasn't in this case. The real tragedy is I tried to bring this to their attention but was dismissed, but ultimately the resource teacher vindicated my instincts. This is something she came to on her own without any input from us. The point being is this process is flawed and kids often fall through the cracks. The upshot of these failures is kids don't always receive the rigorous education to which their entitled and this could be avoided if the school was more receptive to parental input.

Not excusing this -- but do you really think there will be some long-term adverse impact due to this period of time your child wasn't in the right reading group in first grade?

Perhaps, but why should some children receive challenging material that helps them improve while others are randomly denied. I can’t imagine this is in a child’s best interests.