Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, I’d switch schools. This is a teaching/curriculum problem. If she scored 85th percentile in the fall it is unlikely she has a disability or doesn’t know how to test- she has proved fully capable of learning and testing. She is now in the 45th percentile with steady decrease- she is not learning in school and is actively losing knowledge.

2nd grade was like this for both my kids...

My child was like this in math in second grade. Tested high in fall, no change on the winter raw score (dropped percentile). I supplemented for the spring and raw score rose but not to the original percentile. Kept supplementing over the summer, and the fall of 3rd grade score was highest both raw and percentile wise of all the scores.

Anonymous wrote:OP, I had this happen with my child in a mediocre public school. Fall test scores were always high, then they would steadily drop throughout yr, lowest being spring. They were high in the fall because I worked with her over the summer, daily. They would learn more over 10 weeks of summer than they would all year in school. It became apparent they were doing a whole lot of nothing in school. I got fed up and pulled her after second grade.

This rings so true to me.

Another thing is that in well-off areas enough tutoring/supplementing happens outside school that deficiencies in the school curriculum sometimes will get masked. In many cases, parents supplement quietly and do not admit they are supplementing to other parents.

NP. My 2nd grader did well in the fall and even higher percentile in the Spring. Attends a small no-name private. It seems very odd - and troubling - to me that a student would drop percentiles by so many points between fall and spring.

If it were my kid, I would switch to a school with a better curriculum -- and maybe supplement at home.

It is sad that parents need to vet curricula, but in some places that is where we are. For reading, during school tours we quietly took photos of reading materials with our phones. When we got home we looked up publishers, Ed Reviews, and such. I hope it is better now, but our public was using the Lucy Calkins crap and even some "good name" private schools mentioned here had the Fountas & Pinnell crap. Bad reading curricula often teach "3-cueing" which can cause a solid reader to deteriorate. We narrowed to a small set of schools that were Phonics-centered but not Phonics exclusive (English also has many sight words). We got in to one of those schools and it has made all the difference for DC.

Anonymous wrote:These tests are all BS. Don't put much stock in them. My kid who flunked the math SOL in third grade is now an excellent math student in high school. My college kid who got tagged as being below reading level in grade school is now in the honors college and rocked the English and History APs with great reading comprehension. I remember worrying too back in the day. But now I look back and laugh. Just enjoy your kids and instill a love of learning. Be their biggest fan, and tell them every day how much you love them.

I love this! Thank you

These tests are all BS. Don't put much stock in them. My kid who flunked the math SOL in third grade is now an excellent math student in high school. My college kid who got tagged as being below reading level in grade school is now in the honors college and rocked the English and History APs with great reading comprehension. I remember worrying too back in the day. But now I look back and laugh. Just enjoy your kids and instill a love of learning. Be their biggest fan, and tell them every day how much you love them.

What kinda of questions are tested in 2nd grade MAP? Online searches are mixed.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, I’d switch schools. This is a teaching/curriculum problem. If she scored 85th percentile in the fall it is unlikely she has a disability or doesn’t know how to test- she has proved fully capable of learning and testing. She is now in the 45th percentile with steady decrease- she is not learning in school and is actively losing knowledge.

2nd grade was like this for both my kids...

What does this mean? And why specific to 2nd grade

Anonymous wrote:Until 3rd grade the MAP is administered by some of the questions being read out loud to kids on the computer. That could be an issue as well. I found my bookworm kid was breezing through the tests in 2nd and 3rd and not actually paying attention to what was asked. I'd work on that as well.

I believe there are several versions of the test. One for K-2 that is read aloud and a 2-5 version that is not. They also test different skills. My kid didn't so so well on the K-2 version despite being an excellent reader because he didn't seem to get the phonics questions. But in the middle of 2nd grade, they switched to the 2-5 version which didn't have phonics - just things like vocabulary and reading comprehension. He did phenomenally well on the MAP from then on. Did great on the ACT and remains a good reader in college.

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, I’d switch schools. This is a teaching/curriculum problem. If she scored 85th percentile in the fall it is unlikely she has a disability or doesn’t know how to test- she has proved fully capable of learning and testing. She is now in the 45th percentile with steady decrease- she is not learning in school and is actively losing knowledge.

2nd grade was like this for both my kids...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What do students do after the test is over? My kid's scores were always highest in the fall. Once he saw that his teacher allowed students to play games on the computer when they finished the test, he flew through it to get to the games. Computer based testing on little kids is BS IMO.

teachers do this so kids get lower scores in the fall, so it seems like they improved more. its not immoral, just part of the job. encourage them to rush and say they can play games upon completion in fall. tell them to take their time and that they can sit ghere quietly while the rest of the class finished in spring.

So a low spring score is even worse then… and drop from fall to spring is worse than just a flat low score all year.

yep. it makes it so that "standard improvement" might actually be lower that what a kid could have gotten if they tried in fall. it looks impressive but sets very low, easily attainable spring growth standards.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I had this happen with my child in a mediocre public school. Fall test scores were always high, then they would steadily drop throughout yr, lowest being spring. They were high in the fall because I worked with her over the summer, daily. They would learn more over 10 weeks of summer than they would all year in school. It became apparent they were doing a whole lot of nothing in school. I got fed up and pulled her after second grade.

How do you know a school is mediocre? This is supposed to be a great elementary school. I wasn’t expecting to have to cobble together a full literacy curriculum at home.

All public schools are mediocre. Their curriculum and standards are dictated by the state, not the teachers. They are teaching grade level material at most- or lower, and often don’t even get through an entire years curriculum. The only reason some public schools appear better is wealth: better class parties, newer materials, cool assemblies and field trips. The test scores are better because parents supplement at home either formally or through lived exposure and/or the child has a natural high aptitude and seeks out learning on their own. But the actual teaching or curriculum isn’t any better than any other public school

Anonymous wrote:OP, I had this happen with my child in a mediocre public school. Fall test scores were always high, then they would steadily drop throughout yr, lowest being spring. They were high in the fall because I worked with her over the summer, daily. They would learn more over 10 weeks of summer than they would all year in school. It became apparent they were doing a whole lot of nothing in school. I got fed up and pulled her after second grade.

How do you know a school is mediocre? This is supposed to be a great elementary school. I wasn’t expecting to have to cobble together a full literacy curriculum at home.

Anonymous wrote:The teacher and curriculum sound terrible, OP. What sort of standardized testing score does this school have? What's their reputation like?

You might have to switch schools, and in the meantime, get your kid some reading comprehension workbooks over the summer.

By all accounts and measures, the school is supposed to be great. 10/10 GS, top 100 elementary in the state, wealthy district, math and reading test results are always 68-80% on grade level or higher. Very few economically disadvantaged kids, virtually 0% ELL.

Thinking about it more… I guess compared to a school with a similar passage rate but more ELL and more FARMS kids, you could say the other school is better, since you’d expect some of the failing scores would be in Reading ELL and kids in wealthy areas like ours usually have parents pushing kids enough to pass.

Or did DD just get a bad teacher? Can a mediocre teacher one year lead to this much of a drop with no other red flags?

OP, I had this happen with my child in a mediocre public school. Fall test scores were always high, then they would steadily drop throughout yr, lowest being spring. They were high in the fall because I worked with her over the summer, daily. They would learn more over 10 weeks of summer than they would all year in school. It became apparent they were doing a whole lot of nothing in school. I got fed up and pulled her after second grade.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, I’d switch schools. This is a teaching/curriculum problem. If she scored 85th percentile in the fall it is unlikely she has a disability or doesn’t know how to test- she has proved fully capable of learning and testing. She is now in the 45th percentile with steady decrease- she is not learning in school and is actively losing knowledge.

You don’t know stop projecting

How else can you explain a high fall score, with zero learning issues thus far and normal testing and teaching reports from k-1 with second grade teacher saying “she’s fine.” There is no other explanation that makes more sense than she is not learning new material at school and actively losing knowledge she did know, likely due to lack of using it/reinforcement