Do you keep grades?

[Paige]

Do you keep and give letter or numeric grades for your children? If so, how do you keep track of it and decide how much weight to give each assignment? I hadn't planned on it as I expect my son to complete everything correctly before moving on but I am reconsidering. I am thinking of keeping grades for daily work based on his first attempt, adding in chapter tests in subjects that have them, and presenting him with a report card every 6 weeks like in school. He would still always have to fix his work and redo it until he shows he gets it but the grades would be based on what he turns in first. It seems that he isn't careful in his math work because he knows he can just go back and fix it if he misses something. I thought grades with some sort of incentive attached for good grades may encourage him to aim for accuracy and to pay closer attention. He seems to go through his work as quickly as he can and he's making many silly mistakes because he misreads the problem, answers the problem in the wrong column, overlooks a problem, etc.

[Love2teach0307]

I'm struggling some with this, too. We're in Alabama and just joined a covering. They want numbered grades twice a year for oversight purposes and are flexible to work with so I'm not freaking out too much (yet). My plan is to take once-a-week assessments in the main subjects and average them out. We don't go on to another topic/lesson until the subject is mastered so I'm not too worried. My schedule is to put certain subjects on certain days to be graded like math on Wednesdays and handwriting on Fridays. Even if in math we're struggling in a certain topic, I can find a worksheet or oral exercise to judge how her math skills are progressing. It's harder for subjects like history and science for 2nd grade since I don't necessarily think tests are necessary. So I also look at the effort she puts into her notebook and how well she can narrate what she learns. Grades should give a snapshot of academic progress and should be a tool of learning not the end goal.

[charmama4]

I don't keep grades for daily work. I only keep grades for tests and only selected subjects. My kids grade levels are 7th, 5th, and 2nd.

Math-test

music-no

art-no

grammar-test

vocabulary-test

spelling-test

writing-no ( I would like too however I just can't figure out how yet)

US history-no

world history-no

logic-no

chemistry-test

reading-no

latin-test

anatomy-no

phonics-test

 

regarding your delima with math, I have them do 15 problems (we use Saxon) if they get more than 7 wrong then they have to do the evens. It's my incentive for them to be more careful ;). hope this helps.

[Smithie]

My accountabilty org wants a grade in each subject for each quarter, all submitted at once at the end of our school year. Basically, it's a traditional "report card" format where I provide the numbers and they print something up for his file.

 

I have decided to pick certain items to grade as we go along (math tests, some copywork, whatever worksheets in the other subject seem most amenable to grading, etc.) and add the grades up quarterly. I intend to give a quartelry grade based on about five samples from each subject - and those samples will be retained to go into the "portfolio" that nobody is ever going to ask for.

 

I will NOT grade everything, I will NOT think about grades every day, I will NOT put any emotional energy whatsoever into my grading scheme because grading a 6 y.o. is MORONIC.

 

:D

[Joyofsixreboot]

I don't care too but ds begged for a report card. Math and science and grammar were easy as they had a test. I went with the +,check mark, - system from kindergarten for the rest of his subjects based on his effort. Other than to print him out a card every 9 weeks I don't keep track otherwise.

[EKS]

So far, I've only kept grades for my older son, starting in 5th grade (for certain subjects). For the past year I've been using Engrade. It's straightforward, online, and free.

[HSMom2One]

This is our fourth year of hs'ing, and I have never kept grades. I do keep samples of my dd's basic work for each grade level, and I file standardized test results and placement tests we've done. We are not required to keep grades in our state, so I don't plan to do so until she is in high school.

 

Blessings,

Lucinda

[mrs.m]

My DD has requested grades so she can have feedback on her progress. I will be grading tests only. Daily work is corrected so no grade could be assigned. I think it is unfair to assign grades on practice work and I hated that in school too. :(

 

I will not be grading my 2nd grader or K'er and will continue to work towards mastery. The curriculum has tests but if he misses, I have him re-do those problems.

[thowell]

So far, I've only kept grades for my older son, starting in 5th grade (for certain subjects). For the past year I've been using Engrade. It's straightforward, online, and free.

 

 

This is great and just what I have been looking for. Thanks!

[Suzanne115]

My daughter is in third grade. I keep grades, but only because our umbrella school requires it. For skill based subjects, I just pick two items a week to grade and record. For other subjects, I usually pick on or two items and give a participation grade. If the curriculum includes tests, I will grade them to be part of our two grades for the week.

 

Suzanne

[misidawnrn]

nope, I do not keep grades. The only reason being is that I help DD correct every problem she gets wrong, every spelling mistake etc so eventually she will have it all right. She is only a 1st grader and we will be doing the tests for Math Mammoth when we get there and spelling tests for when we start SWO (on hold to finish more of OPGTR). So then she will get a little bit of grades but I plan on giving her rewards for each test but not focusing on the over all grades per se.

[AudreyTN]

regarding your delima with math, I have them do 15 problems (we use Saxon) if they get more than 7 wrong then they have to do the evens. It's my incentive for them to be more careful ;). hope this helps.

 

I must be mean. :D With Rod and Staff I had my ds do 3 out of 5 rows. For each problem that he missed he had to do 2 more problems.

[AudreyTN]

I have never kept grades before. I will start doing so this year with my 4th and 5th grader. 1- They BEG me to grade their papers. 2- I want to "practice" before High School when it becomes necessary.

 

I'm planning to grade Math, Spelling, Latin and History. (History only because MOH has pretests and quizzes, mostly just for fun.)

[elegantlion]

No grades here. I graded when we used a box curriculum that had built in tests and such, but not for now. Ds is not motivated by grades, they make a lot of work for me, and I know how he's doing in each subject, kwim.

 

I plan to grade for high school, but we tend to pull our own materials together, so I'm not sure how or what I will grade. I have a few years to work that out.

[NanceXToo]

No, I do not keep grades. I don't want my kids to feel like they have to prove what they know or how well they know it, or to feel like they are doing well or poorly based on some letter or number. I want learning to be just an ongoing process, not some sort of constant test for a letter grade or whatever.

 

I just want learning to be an enjoyable process to the extent possible. As they do things, I am there with them, checking it over with them, and correcting or discussing as necessary as they go or right afterward. For now, that works for us.

 

This may change in later years as they get older but for now, it's not one of my priorities.

[MorganClassicalPrep]

Well... I didn't plan on grading until high school, but my 4.5 year old may have another plan!

 

The other night DD asked me to give her a spelling test. I'm not even sure where she heard of them! :lol: So I gave her a test of the -at words, which she knows well enough to get 1 perfect score. After she wrote down all the words on a piece of paper she handed it to me and said "Did I get an A?"

:confused: I really have no idea where she's getting these ideas. I guess from one of her closest friends, who is 7 and in school, but I've never heard them discussing spelling tests... lol.

[SnegurochkaL]

I must be mean, but I used grading systems since my daughter was a Ker. At first, I assigned numerical grades to shapes: "5" (A +) is a "Star" (no mistakes); "4" (A) a Square ( up to 10% wrong ), "3" (B) a Triangle ( up to 25% wrong, "2" © a Circle ( up to 40 % wrong). "C" grade was bad enough to assign more shape below that point. My daughter was so glad when she earned her stars and squares.

Later I gave points instead of grades because we had a point system as a learning motivation. My daughter traded her points at the end of the week into a book, set of stickers or kept points for a month to redeem for something "BIG" (a computer game was 2000 points). I kept track of her points in my "School scheduler" where I tracked study time.

 

I could always transform her points into grades if I needed to. We did it twice per year for our Credit Union where kids can earn money for every A in their report card.

[Hockey Mom]

I do grades for my boys. They love report card day. It's terribly easy for me to do though. BJU tells me what each worksheet is worth, and I just plug it into our Homeschool Tracker program. HST figures all of the grades for me. I just print it out.