MAP math test scores 4th grade/Stress and Anxiety how to help my DD

[mom2]

My DD in 4th grade just got accepted in the Young Scholarship Program.  She took her MAP math test and went down from last year.  The RIT scores were up from last year, but are in green where as to last year they were in blue.  So I am confused on how this test actually works.  Her percentile is 79% and in 3rd grade it was 87% percentile. Then her RIT scores were 212 and last year it was 202.  I emailed the teacher and she said not to worry and my DD is doing just fine.  She is in the young scholarship program.  We are now working on the MCA for this spring.  My daughter doesn't do very well on test.  She gets anxiety,, her brain goes blank, but at home she knows the material very well.

[MrSmith]

It means the 4th grade cohort has a higher average overall.

 

As long as you see steady progress in her scores she's doing fine. The rest is just noise and not worth fretting over.

[Tsuga]

There are many reasons a child's percentile could fall over time, and test anxiety is a big one. Some kids hit bumps in the road as they approach puberty.

 

Other reasons she might be learning the material but not be ahead of as many kids as she was before:

 

• One form of catch-up is a catch-up in age. Children who start kindergarten as summer birthdays are 20% younger than children who turn 6 in September (or whatever the cutoff may be). The younger children start--like in New York they can start at 4.5 basically, if they'll be 5 by December--the greater the difference. This gap persists throughout school for children who are the most behind, but some bright kids really, really catch up. If your daughter is older for her age, there should be some closing of the gap throughout elementary.
• There's also an enrichment catch-up. Kids spend a lot of time in primary school. Kids without enrichment will start out behind, and often stay behind due to lack of continued enrichment. But the more time kids spend in school, the more the enrichment advantage will fade. So if your daughter had quality pre-school, or a lot of enrichment activities before school, that advantage slowly wears off (but never completely).

 

And then of course there are flukes.

 

I don't know what Young Scholarship is, though. It doesn't sound like her scores would be low for remediation, nor high enough for the Gifted and Talented program, though it depends on the cutoffs. If the teacher is happy then she's fine.

[kiwik]

If it is Davidson Young Scholars then it puts her IQ in the above 99.9 % ile range and probably more like 99.99 %ile.