How much work is normal for 2nd grade?

[TXMomof4]

My sister just called and is in an absolute rage. She is separated from her dh and went to the school at the beginning of the situation and asked them to call her if either of her dd were behaving differently or had any difficulties at school.

 

She just received their first progress report since this all came to a head and her oldest dd - who has some learning disabilities anyway - has 1 A (behaviour), 1 C and the rest are Fs. This is not normal for her, my sister works HARD with her to keep her on top of things.

 

Then my sis started telling me the grades - there were only 4-6 grades for each subject, almost all of them tests. In spelling she had 2 class assignments and 4 test grades. All of the test grades were failing so she's obviously failing the course. Is that normal course work for a 2nd grader? I remember having different activities to do every day for spelling. If we didn't do them in class we at least had a folder where we had to check that we'd studied our words every day at home.

 

Aside from the fact that they didn't call her when the grades were slipping, I told her I would be more than a little angry if my 8 yo was completely dependant on tests to pass a class. Then I realized, my experience is very old and was wondering if this is normal these days. Any experiences?

[Melissa B]

I pulled my eldest out of kindergarten for that reason (among several.)

 

She received a failing to progress grade in reading. Why? The entire grade was determined based on three worksheets. She wasn't there for one of them and received a zero. (Why wasn't she there? Because she had lice picked up due to the community art shirts used in the school.)

 

She also received an excellent in math even though she couldn't then tell the difference between a 6, an 8 and a 9. :confused: The grade was based on two worksheets that happened to have very few of those three numbers in them. No one had any idea how she was doing (or truly who she even was.)

 

So in our schools, yes it is that arbitrary. When I questioned the school on it - they told me I was simply reading too much into the grades and everything would work itself out by the end of elementary school. Perhaps that is true; I never tested it.

[thescrappyhomeschooler]

Hard to say. My first grader has to do spelling homework every night, then they have a test on Fridays. But my kids don't actually get grades. They have S for secure, D for developing, some other one I can't remember right now. I'm not sure how they actually tally up the scores and determine whether the kid is secure or developing. This is another reason the school bugs me and I can't wait for next year and full time homeschooling!

[FaithManor]

I can not speak for our local public schools for this age range. But, I can tell you that this would not be "normal" for the private school I worked in.

 

For spelling, we used SRA and there is a spelling assignment for each day of the week with Friday being the test. A list of spelling words is sent home on Monday with each child. I am against the practice of NOT sending spelling lists home. The spelling/vocabulary assignments were graded in addition to the test.

 

Math was a five day per week subject with daily work counting for 50% of the grade and tests for 50%. Unless there was a field trip, math was done every single day.....always with a written assignment. Sometimes problems were done together in class but they were still written down and handed in.

 

What you are describing does not sound like very much work to me and a lousy way of determining grades.

 

Faith

[TXMomof4]

When she started reading me those grades I honestly didn't believe that was all the graded work for the period. I know she is very diligent about sitting and doing homework with her dd every day. She said she has brought home two assignments in the last 3 weeks. Her math grade is based on 4 tests.

 

What do they do in class? I am absolutely bumfuzzled with this.

 

It's funny, I don't 'grade' my kids yet. They do the work, we go through it together. If they were in ps though, you'd better believe I would expect a math grade at least 4 x week. If they are doing exercises in class, they should count towards part of their grade. I wonder if this is the standard or if it's just a lazy teacher.