A Guide the NWEA Assessments

Norris School District

"Be the change you want to see in the world."

~Mahatma Gandhi

A Parent Guide to the NWEA Assessments

About NWEA

Northwest Evaluation Association™ (NWEA™) is a not-for-profit educational services organization located in Portland, Oregon. NWEA partners with educational organizations worldwide to provide research-based computerized adaptive assessments, professional development for educators and research services. As a result of NWEA tests, educators can make informed decisions to promote your child’s academic growth.

NWEA was built on the belief that kids can be the owners of their own learning and that accurate information about their learning helps to make that possible. Testing tools and reports from NWEA provide specific insight into your child’s learning, and wide-ranging information to help every student, classroom and school succeed.

Norris is using NWEA’s Measures of Academic Progress® (MAP®) assessment system to identify your child’s learning growth. The following information should answer common questions about NWEA and the MAP assessments.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the MAP assessment?

Measures of Academic Progress® (MAP®) – These computerized tests are adaptive and offered in Reading, Language Usage, and Mathematics. When taking a MAP® test, the difficulty of each question is based on how well a student answers all the previous questions. As the student answers correctly, questions become more difficult. If the student answers incorrectly, the questions become easier. In an optimal test, a student answers approximately half the items correctly and half incorrectly. The final score is an estimate of the student’s achievement level. There are three area in which Norris students are assessed.

Assessment areas:

Reading
Language Usage
Mathematics

How long does it take to complete a test?

Although the tests are not timed, it usually takes students about one hour to complete each MAP test.

Do all students in the same grade take the same test?

No. NWEA assessments are designed to target a student’s academic performance in mathematics, reading, language usage, and science. These tests are tailored to an individual’s current achievement level. This gives each student a fair opportunity to show what he or she knows and can do. With MAP assessments the computer adjusts the difficulty of the questions so that each student takes a unique test.

How are NWEA assessments used?

NWEA assessments are used to measure your student’s progress or growth in school. You may have a chart in your home on which you mark your child’s height at certain times, such as on his or her birthday. This is a growth chart. It shows how much he or she has grown from one year to the next. NWEA assessments do the same sort of thing, except they measure your child’s growth in mathematics, reading, language usage, and science skills. The scale used to measure your child’s progress is called the RIT scale (Rasch unIT). The RIT scale works much like feet and inches on a yardstick. It is used to chart your child’s academic growth from year to year.

How do teachers use the test scores?

MAP assessments are important to teachers because they keep track of progress and growth in basic skills. The results let teachers know where a student’s strengths are and if help is needed in any specific areas. Teachers use this information to help guide their instruction in the classroom.

Commonly Used Terms

Here are some terms you will hear and use as you are talking with teachers and your child about MAP scores and reports.

District Average: The average RIT score for all students in the school district in the same grade who were tested at the same time as this student.

Norm Group Average: The average score observed for students in the norm group. The most recent NWEA norm sample was a group of over 2.8 million students from across the United States.

Percentile Range: Percentiles are used to compare one student’s performance to that of the norm group. Percentile means the student scored as well as or better than that percent of students taking the test in his/her grade. There is about a 68% chance that a student’s percentile ranking would fall within this range if the student tested again relatively soon.

Percentile Rank: The percentile rank is a statistic that indicates how well a student performed in comparison to the students in the norm group. A student’s percentile rank indicates that the student scored as well as, or better than, the percent of students in the norm group. In other words, a student with a percentile rank of 72 scored as well as, or better than, 72% of the students in the norm group.

RIT: Tests developed by NWEA use a scale called RIT to measure student achievement and growth. RIT stands for Rasch UnIT, which is a measurement scale developed to simplify the interpretation of test scores. The RIT score relates directly to the curriculum scale in each subject area. It is an equal-interval scale, like feet and inches, so scores can be added together to calculate accurate class or school averages. RIT scores range from about 100 to 280. Students typically start at the 180 to 200 level in the third grade and progress to the 220 to 260 level by high school. RIT scores make it possible to follow a student’s educational growth from year to year.

Standards: Standards are statements, developed by states or districts, of what students should know and be able to do, related to specific academic areas.

Tips for Parents

Ways to help your child optimize their learning experience

	Discuss your child's progress with his or her teacher. Ask the teacher to suggest activities for you and your child to do at home to help improve your child’s performance. Students benefit from parents and teachers working together.
	Provide a quiet, comfortable place for studying at home.
	Make sure that your child is well rested on school days and especially the day of a test. Children who are tired are less able to pay attention in class or to handle the demands of a test.
	Give your child a well-rounded diet. A healthy body leads to a healthy, active mind.
	Provide books and magazines for your child to read at home. By reading new materials, a child learns new words and improves vocabulary skills. Ask your child’s teacher about a suggested reading list.
	Play games together like Scrabble®, Spill and Spell™, Scattergories®, and Balderdash™.
	Work crossword puzzles with your child.
	Give a magazine subscription to your child as a gift.

Web Sites for Children and Parents (Recommended by NWEA)

Mathematics

http://www.aaamath.com/ Math practice and activities

www.coolmath.com I nteractive math games

www.funbrain.com Interactive math and reading activities

http://aplusmath.com/ Math games and puzzles

http://mathforum.org/dr.math/ Common math questions answered

www.mathleague.com/help/help.htm Math help resource

http://www.edhelper.com/ Math problems to solve

Language Arts/Reading

www.funbrain.com Language arts games and more

www.merriam-webster.com Word of the Day and word games

www.vocabulary.com Vocabulary activities

www.superkids.com/aweb/tools/words Vocabulary builders

http://www.edhelper.com/ Reading and vocabulary activities