Another rawking good post by Tamara Fisher at “Unwrapping the Gifted” entitled Advanced Readers. (God, I love that woman. The fact that she’s a teacher and saying what says just means the world to me.) I hadn’t even finished it when I jumped down and starting pounding away in her comments box, but then thought, geez, I’m getting a little worked up in her space. This isn’t a comment, it’s a blog post. So here goes.
She writes:
For kids at the 90th percentile, there is consistent WCPM [words correct per minute] growth until middle school, where they don’t stagnate, they actually regress. Our most talented readers and they’re regressing‽‽‽
This is educational neglect, folks.
We have a nation-wide lack of adequate, ability-appropriate educational growth for a sizeable number of capable students and it seems no one is screaming about it!
Yes, Yes, Yes!
As the mom of a profoundly verbally gifted child, I have been talking about this to anyone who will listen. Just to this issue of regression, our personal experience. Here in MCPS they introduced the MAP-R four or so years ago. It’s a computer-based assessment tool, done either two or three times per year, depending on grade. It’s used as a diagnostic tool. The students work through a series of exercises that get harder or easier depending on how they answer, allowing the test to pinpoint exactly where the child is on several measures. Because of the high ceiling it can be especially useful in assessing the abilities of highly able younger students. The results are available to the teacher almost immediately and it’s being used systemwide to target with laser-like precision those students who are “on the bubble” for NCLB and require extra intervention.
But *all* students take the test. C. took it for the first time in 5th grade, when it was introduced, in 6th and in 7th. In the fall of 5th grade she was already at what the reading specialist told me was 12th grade-plus equivalency. When she was retested in the spring, she actually *dropped*. As in negative growth. Regression. At the beginning of 6th grade she tested again and had recovered and improved slightly on her fall 5th grade score…and then dropped in the spring. Same deal in 7th. (I could, I suppose, make the case that school was actually *harming* her learning.)
And at any time did anyone say, “Hey, this kid is reading 7 grades above level, and what’s more, she’s regressing while she’s in school, only to recover over the summer?” Uh, no. In 5th grade they just gave her the standard 5th grade GT “program,” namely the William and Mary Secret Garden unit (which she had read–and watched, in play and movie format numerous times–years previous). She was still expected to read and complete the exercises for Time For Kids (a bowdlerized Time Magazine) like everyone else. If this isn’t “educational neglect” I don’t know what is. It’s this example and others, that get me incensed, that fuel my passion, that prompted me to start this blog (check out my tags for other posts on being verbally gifted).
Anyway, last year on our local GT listserv there was extensive discussion about coming up with a recommendation for the powers that be of a “datapoint” that could be used to track achievement in Reading/Language Arts that would be comparable to the “algebra by 8th grade” datapoint. “Aha,” I thought, “The MAP-R!” But that idea went nowhere. Evidently the powers that be said that there would be no way to show that the progress was achieved by input from teaching rather than advantages in the home. One parent was told by a teacher at her middle school that they take MAP-R with a huge grain of salt because “kids figure out how to get high scores.”
Okay, so you’re going to be a data-driven system, and take the data as gospel when it applies to underperforming students…but ignore it when it applies to students who are high achieving and possibly reaching the ceiling of your measures? Teaching matters for underperforming students, but not with high achieving students? Oh, that’s right. They come with all these home advantages anyway (GT students are all white and middle class, no?), so in their case test results are meaningless. This logic–or lack thereof–took my breath away. And still does.
I recently had reason to take a look at the MCPS Strategic Plan. What a bunch of soulless, bureacratic, educratic gobbledy-gook. But while the system says it wants to provide a world class education for every student, take a look at the performance targets. For middle school they’re shooting for roughly 75% “at or above proficient” on the low standard Maryland State Assessment. Where in that is there any incentive whatsoever to recognize the students who already are above proficient and move them further? Tamara says it well:
If we don’t have time to reach every child where he or she is and move them on from there – if we don’t have time to challenge every kid at his or her learning readiness level – if we only focus on the kids who “need to get there,” – then we are deciding that some kids will not get an education that year. We are deciding that some kids will get to learn, thanks to our efforts, and others will be denied their potential degree of educational growth, thanks to our lack of effort. We’re deciding this based on proficiency of “grade level,” not based on what is actually appropriate academic growth for a given learner. Individual student growth – actual LEARNING – is an irrelevant factor apparently. All that matters, it would seem, is that they reach the bar. And if they’re already at the bar, then it’s okay to not put any effort into teaching them.
Yes, I am actually saying that when we say we don’t have time to work with the advanced learners in our classes, we are in essence saying that we are choosing to not give those kids an education.
Thank you, Tamara for saying this. More of us need to say it, louder and to wider audiences.
Heard it loud and clear, SwitchedOnMom!!!
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I, too, am frustrated by the low ceilings on standardized tests. Just as one example – Our state test is the MontCAS. I have a friend who, for a class she was taking for her administrator endorsement, examined the data for her school by looking at raw scores and calculating percentages correct for each child (incredibly, the data the schools get on the kids doesn’t give that information). She discovered that kids who had as few as 78% correct were still getting the highest “Advanced” level score.
That’s a pretty low ceiling. And when one is trying to figure out just how advanced a child is, it can’t be done when the child answering 98% correct and the child answering 78% correct come out looking the same according to their score.
Happy blogging! I enjoy reading your work, too
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If the advanced level ranges from 78% correct to 98% correct, then the problem isn’t low ceiling on the test, just poor reporting of test results.
There are plenty of tests on the market that can be used to test kids across a range of abilities. For example, the Terra Nova battery of achievement tests use a “Scale Score” that is roughly independent of which level of the test is given, so that one can get fairly accurate measurements of students by giving them tests at the appropriate level. Modern computer-based tests, though more expensive to administer, do this adaptation automatically.
The problem is not necessarily with the testing, but with the will to teach the advanced students.
Amen and Amen. This is the very core of what made me nuts in our last district and I just hope and pray things are better here in our new district – but I know this is an endemic problem throughout our country only made worse by the manic focus on NCLB and teaching to the lowest common denominator.
Thanks for all the comments everyone! I am traveling at the moment so am only getting to my blog sporadically in the next few days.
Quick point… I agree with Kevin. In general I don’t think there’s a very good understanding of testing, period. Not just reporting but interpretation. I’m no statistician, but I’ve learned a lot since C. was in Kindergarten and I was she hit a 99th percentile on several measures. At the time I thought, oh, gee, that’s nice. And certainly no school official ever said, whoa…a kid hitting a 98-98th percentile is hitting the test ceiling. It was “that’s great”…and that was the end of it. No further inquiry. No further questioning.
So what else is new? In my 36 years of full-time teaching I reached many who were above average because I would carry on conversations at the student’s level, not their grade level. Have you ever discussed cold fusion with a second grader? Have you ever discussed astrophysics with a fourth grader? Have you ever been stumped by that same student or classmate as they asked a question based upon the Discovery Channel specials? Need I say anything about what those students are studying or studied in college???!?!?!
THEN there was my last principal who told me that I spoke over the children’s heads. Must have been because the previous principal told me I was too tall to teach elementary school. I am only 5’8″ tall.
Part of the problem is that adults in the children’s lives at school are not comfortable with subjects the students are interested in. I see that especially in math and science areas for the elementary and primary grades. Those two areas have LOTS of trade paperbacks and readers with LOTS of information. I learned LOTS by reading children’s books, or so called children’s books. Factoids fascinate kids.
What happened to reading just for learning and enjoyment rather than to get scores on tests or increasing your WCPM? Obviously you want kids to be engaged and challenged, but to be honest with you, taking a book away from a child because it is “too easy” for him or only allowing kids to read books at certain levels in order to ensure they are challenged just sounds as if it could easily take the enjoyment out of reading.
Shouldn’t reading be more about the process than the result? Is reading only a means to an end? Or is it more than that?
I homeschool so I don’t have to worry about this type of stuff so maybe I don’t get it…but I have to admit that from the outside looking in, this looks exhausting…and it seems as if it is taking something that can happen very naturally (reading is fun after all and there are a lot of awesome books out there) and turns it into a heck of a lot of work…
I couldn’t agree with Tamara’s assessment more — and in fact, it’s a major reason we chose to homeschool. We encountered this attitude of dismissiveness early on, actually, when we talked with the school she was scheduled to attend in kindy, only to have it be crystal-clear that what she would encounter would basically be a species of benign neglect while they worked on the “bubble kids.”
Essentially, I get infuriated with the hypocrisy of schools patting themselves on the back for their efforts to “teach every child to his potential” or other such gladhanding claptrap. Ironically and appallingly and incomprehensibly, they DO NOT CARE about gifted children as a whole, whether we’re talking “gifted-’cause-they’re-hothoused” or “doing algebra at five.” It makes me so angry.
Right on! My son was a talented reader, entering kindergarten as a self taught reader. In first grade his teacher used basil readers, he completely tuned out. He never learned skills to tackle advanced reading materials and now as a high schooler actually struggles with comprehension and inferences.
Young talented readers don’t all do fine on their own. They still deserve to be taught to read.
“What happened to reading just for learning and enjoyment rather than to get scores on tests or increasing your WCPM? ”
Stephanie, this is largely left for home. In some of the early school years my girls had DEAR time (Drop Everything and Read), where they could read anything they liked for pleasure, but it seemed to diminish as they got older…or maybe I just wasn’t hearing about it.
What we did get progressively more of, in elementary it seems is reading logs, which I *loathe*. Maybe for some kids they are necessary (this year in 5th all kids had to pledge to read 20 books by year’s end) but IMO, nothing kills enjoyment for already motivated readers more than having to log reading minutes and have mom or dad sign off. Yuck.
By way of background/credentials, I’ve been an educator for 30+ years and have a masters in special ed with a concentration in Gifted & Talented Ed. I taught all grades K-8, both mixed-ability and gifted-only, spent many years in administration at site/district/county levels. I now consult K-12 full time with seminars for parents of GT students, training teachers to differentiate curriculum, and helping districts to create or improve programs for gifted.
There is plenty of blame to go around. While there are a few “bad apples” in teaching as in every profession, most teachers want to reach and teach every student. The most significant roadblocks, from my perspective:
1. Lots of monitoring and consequences for teachers and schools if kids don’t reach minimum proficiency levels, but no oversight or apparent concern if anyone at or above that minimum – let alone far above it – makes any progress. As Grant Wiggins says: what you test is what you get.
2. More is required than can be accomplished in the school day and year. Since teachers never finish the previous task, there is never time to address the needs of those who are not in academic “trouble.” Too many subjects (17 in the elementary grades), too much stuff in most textbooks – much of it not worthy of valuable instructional time – too many days wasted on non-instructional activities. If unexpected company calls to say they will be dropping by shortly, I quickly tidy the kitchen, livingroom and guest bath, close door to my office and bedroom, and ignore my cluttered garage knowing no one will see it. This repeats again and again. Though I’d rather have a clean garage, I never get to it because there is never “extra” time and no one is checking. Human nature. Struggling learners are in our livingrooms… the gifted are in the garage.
2. Teachers receive little or no preparation in their teacher education courses about giftedness – what it means, how to identify it, how to nurture it, how social and emotional needs differ from age-peers, how to teach to maximize potential.
3. Teachers almost never receive any training to differentiate instruction, or if they do it’s confined to providing extra help to struggling learners.
Rather naive for us to expect teachers to do what no one has trained them to do and no one is checking on. I have found teachers to be VERY receptive to my staff development which gives them teacher-friendly strategies to reach more learners successfully more of the time and specific ways to keep their gifted learners challenged, engaged, and learning!
Jill, thanks for visiting! All four of your points are excellent, especially one that many parents of newly entering students don’t realize: that most teachers receive no or very little training in gifted issues. As much as we get frustrated, one does have to have a some of sympathy for them.
As for differentiation, that is a very high level teaching skill, requiring a well trained, skilled teacher. My frustration is that school systems (or at least the one I’m in) blythely (and at times arrogantly) tout the differentiation-in-heterogeneous classrooms approach, without admitting that it’s not as easily or universally implemented as they make it out to be. Especially when the range of abilities that teachers are expected to address are so vast. The schools my kids have attended are highly diverse…not just ethnically, racially, but socio-economically. How are teachers supposed to teach a class that includes kids from stable middle to upper middle class, well-educated backgrounds alongside kids who literally just arrived in this country, kids with unstable home lives? And everything in between.
Hope you’ll continue to read and contribute.
Thanks for the warm welcome.
Although I agree that differentiating to meet the needs of all kids in a very diverse class is quite complex, I believe we have to begin when teachers are still in training and follow up once they are in the field. Dancing in the Bolshoi Ballet takes tremendous strength, agility, and superb skills that can only come after many years of practice but each of the dancers started as a young child. I also don’t want to offer teachers an out from trying to meet the needs of gifted learners because they are not yet ready to differentiate until a number of years have passed. What about all the students who have spent (!) a year of their childhood in their classrooms? Better to give novice teachers some simple strategies they can implement from the very beginning. Also, once teachers have settled on a teaching style for several years and it becomes routine, it may be more difficult to change.
Besides, we would never permit a 1st ~ or 3rd or 5th ~ year teacher to decline differentiating for a student with a learning disability or physical difference. Why should gifted learners accept less?
I do agree that the greater the range in a classroom, the greater this challenge is… but also the more differentiation is needed!
I’m glad I found your blog. I enjoy your writing style, what you have to say, and the thoughtful and thought-provoking responses from your readers.
OH MY GOD…
sorry to sound like I’m flippant, I am just amazed by your story because the SAME thing happened to my daughter this year. She took the MAP-R at the beginning of the year (3rd grade) and scored off the charts, like the teacher asked me in for a conference) that teacher left, and at the end of the year the comment TO MY DAUGHTER was : you didn’t work hard enough, your score could have gone up more, it only went up by 3 points….
I was thinking, so after a year of school, her score doesn’t budge and you’re blaming HER??????
hmmmmmm……..
I just am dumbstruck at the discrepancy between what I know my first grade daughter can read (she’s right now at about middle of third grade reading level – though she only just started to year a year ago), and what they given her to read for homework – the silly “Can cat tap” 4 page fluff. I’m screaming on the inside “You’ve got to be kidding me”, while I smile at my daughter compliantly reading it for me.
At least 50 percent of her spelling words are repeats from last year. Granted, this is only the first week of school, but it doesn’t bode well.
I shake my head, and worry about this. Tomorrow is our Meet the Teacher night. And the biggest question I have is, how are they going to meet her need? One thing I’m reassured about is that this teacher is a seasoned teacher, so I’m hoping she will be able to differentiate.
My daughter is a people pleaser, so while she probably won’t say she’s ever “bored”, I do wonder that she will wilt during the school year if she’s not challenged enough.
I don’t know what to do or how much to push, because we’ve only just begun the school year. I hope I know what to say.
KC,
First off, don’t you use the “B-word.” It’s poison to teachers. It’s all about “how can we meet her needs by working together?” Listen carefully to your daughter and how she’s feeling about school. Literally take notes to refer to. See if you can identify other parents of highly able kids in your daughter’s class/grade to compare notes with and possibly lobby with. Do you have a list of books she’s been reading? Have that handy.
It is early in the year, and there inevitably is some review and assessment happening. But if the situation persists and you feel your daughter is “wilting” don’t wait too long to say something. As I’ve noted before, the school year flies by and it can take time to line up meetings.
Good luck!
I am keeping a running list of books she’s reading, and I was impressed with the book she chose at library day yesterday. It was a chapter book that has some good vocabulary in it, though I wasn’t crazy about the theme. It was a book of ghost stories and the first one described a story about a child who died and came back to haunt a cabin. They described his torn flesh being wormy (or something like that). I didn’t stop her from reading it, but since she read in my presence I could gauge her reaction. She was non-plussed and knew it wasn’t real.
Though I know myself I can’t censor her reading, because I was reading Stephen King horror books by my sophmore year of high school. If my mom told me what books I could and couldn’t read, I would have been really upset with her.
Yes, I know about avoiding the B word. I know I have to be tactful. I just worry about the timing. I’ll have to see what happens tonight, and my husband will come with me. We’ll assess what we think we ought to do next. I’m going to give it a few weeks to see what happens before I speak.
Thanks for your blog and the helpful links and information. It’s very helpful to read how others have managed the road before me.