Anonymous wrote:I have a third grader and I have noticed a reading level cap at one year above grade level at our school every single year. It appears that some schools cap the levels and some do not. Every year my son has been in the highest group, and every year kids who were in a lower group the year before move up to his group, but the kids who have always been in the highest group, have no where to go and are not being challenged with their reading….very disappointing and unfair that the needs of the top kids are not being met.

Was this better before 2.0? Sad to say both my kid and I have given up on any sort of challenging reading at school.

I have a third grader and I have noticed a reading level cap at one year above grade level at our school every single year. It appears that some schools cap the levels and some do not. Every year my son has been in the highest group, and every year kids who were in a lower group the year before move up to his group, but the kids who have always been in the highest group, have no where to go and are not being challenged with their reading….very disappointing and unfair that the needs of the top kids are not being met.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not all schools have started this yet but the goal is to reduce the number of kids reading more than one year above grade level.

More MCPS BS. So maybe now all the parents of the high achieving readers will see what the parents of high achieving math students have been seeing in MCPS. Shenanigans with grading, placement, grouping, etc. all to make it appear that there is no "achievement gap": "Let's pretend all the kids in the county are all in the middle. Even if we know it isn't true we'll play with grading and leveling so that it appears to be true." What BS!

Isn't this the crap that got Starr thrown out of Stamford? We are in for a one-size-fits-all school system if we don't kick him out.

Starr was fired from Stamford? How about that. (And no, "lots of people in Stamford wanted to fire Starr" is not the same thing.) Why do the Starr-haters make stuff up?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not all schools have started this yet but the goal is to reduce the number of kids reading more than one year above grade level.

More MCPS BS. So maybe now all the parents of the high achieving readers will see what the parents of high achieving math students have been seeing in MCPS. Shenanigans with grading, placement, grouping, etc. all to make it appear that there is no "achievement gap": "Let's pretend all the kids in the county are all in the middle. Even if we know it isn't true we'll play with grading and leveling so that it appears to be true." What BS!

Isn't this the crap that got Starr thrown out of Stamford? We are in for a one-size-fits-all school system if we don't kick him out.

Anonymous wrote:Not all schools have started this yet but the goal is to reduce the number of kids reading more than one year above grade level.

What evidence do you have that the goal of MCPS is to reduce the number of kids reading more than one year above grade level?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not all schools have started this yet but the goal is to reduce the number of kids reading more than one year above grade level.

More MCPS BS. So maybe now all the parents of the high achieving readers will see what the parents of high achieving math students have been seeing in MCPS. Shenanigans with grading, placement, grouping, etc. all to make it appear that there is no "achievement gap": "Let's pretend all the kids in the county are all in the middle. Even if we know it isn't true we'll play with grading and leveling so that it appears to be true." What BS!

What's BS, in my opinion, is condemning MCPS based on the assertion of some anonymous person on DCUM. unsupported by any evidence, that MCPS is doing something.

I have two Mcps students - a 2nd and a 4th grader. I don't sweat all that reading level stuff because in 3rd grade they do the MAP-R and all that other stuff disappears. Like the previous poster my son got in the 99% for reading and math It was pretty frustrating though.

Sorry, meant to say M-class is like a handheld computer that the teacher uses to enter data. The kids are not on the computer.

Anonymous wrote:Not all schools have started this yet but the goal is to reduce the number of kids reading more than one year above grade level.

More MCPS BS. So maybe now all the parents of the high achieving readers will see what the parents of high achieving math students have been seeing in MCPS. Shenanigans with grading, placement, grouping, etc. all to make it appear that there is no "achievement gap": "Let's pretend all the kids in the county are all in the middle. Even if we know it isn't true we'll play with grading and leveling so that it appears to be true." What BS!

I was going to say... it is possible that the school implemented a cap. Our school has had this for as long as I can remember. You can't be more than a year or so ahead. So for example they stop testing at level 16 in K and N (?) in first grade. 2nd grade was P.

Not all schools have started this yet but the goal is to reduce the number of kids reading more than one year above grade level.

At our school the teacher takes the kids one on one twice a year and assesses them. There is no computerized test, or at least, this is what the teachers tell the parents.

I believe they assign levels based on M-class testing. Google it - its a computerized assessment tool that requires written responses at level J and above. My older DS is an excellent reader (scored 99% on MAP-R test in 3rd) but never did well on that test. He was always in the highest group but never at the level I thought he should be. In third grade they stop using that test.

Have you asked the teacher? Like this: "I think that my younger child is substantially stronger in reading than my older child was at the same age, but my younger child's reading level is lower than my older child's was. Could you explain to me how you assign reading levels? Has this changed over the past few years?"

I have a 1st grader and an older child. My 1st grader is reading much better and at a much higher level at home than my older child did when he was in 1st grade. They are 2 years apart so its not that long ago and my younger child is substantially stronger in reading than my older child. What is strange is that my younger child is in a much, much lower reading level than my old kid was in 1st grade. He gets ES grades in writing so it doesn't appear to be an issue where his fluency is high but his writing and ability to provide comprehension is low. There are several parents with the same younger/older child age range and they are experiencing the same thing. The teacher makes a point that younger child is in one of the highest reading groups which also seems very odd considering how the low the level is compared to what kids were assessed at last year and 2 years ago.

The scales that they used haven't changed but are they trying to reduce the range in reading groups so no one is more than 1/2 year or a 1 year ahead?