Giving grades

[Embassy]

My oldest son is requesting that he receive grades and a report card this school year. Because learning comes so easily for him, I wanted to possibly make half of his grade come from attitude and effort. Bad idea? Good idea?

 

Also, he is doing some work several grades above his age "grade level." I was planning on grading him at his level even if his report card says third grade. Good idea? Bad idea?

[Jen500]

I used to have my boys make their own report cards. They enjoyed making them, and they were actually pretty accurate. We didn't really include anything about grade level, more like a letter grade for effort and one for achievement for each subject, and comments.

[regentrude]

My oldest son is requesting that he receive grades and a report card this school year. Because learning comes so easily for him, I wanted to possibly make half of his grade come from attitude and effort. Bad idea? Good idea?

 

Also, he is doing some work several grades above his age "grade level." I was planning on grading him at his level even if his report card says third grade. Good idea? Bad idea?

 

If my kids request grades, I grade the work they are doing - not the work they *would* be doing if they were in their age-respective grade in public school. Anything else is hardly possible - if my 6th grader takes algebra, this is what I need to grade; never mind that they would do intro to fractions in school. (You can always cut them some slack because of their age; for instance, my DD 13 is doing college physics, but I may give her more time on the exam than the actual college students)

 

As for attitude and effort- that's your call. We do not have any issues in this respect. My kids' assignments require effort anyway.

[Embassy]

As for attitude and effort- that's your call. We do not have any issues in this respect. My kids' assignments require effort anyway.

 

Thanks for the input. It isn't that we have issues in that area, but I want him to understand that effort is more important than ability. In other words, I want him to always try his best.

[KAR120C]

Because learning comes so easily for him, I wanted to possibly make half of his grade come from attitude and effort. Bad idea? Good idea?

Is this maybe a sign that you need to ramp up the expectations a bit? If he can do good work with a poor attitude and/or little effort, then maybe it's time to ask more of him. I like to have DS's work level at a point where a B (or 80%-ish) takes effort. Not a ton of effort, but enough that he can't coast. And an A (or 90%-ish) is difficult.

 

I do grade, but not always on a strict percentage scale. Frequently it's on projects (we're big on projects here!), and what I expect on a project is always going to involve plenty of work... and always a bit more than the last time.

[EKS]

Because learning comes so easily for him, I wanted to possibly make half of his grade come from attitude and effort. Bad idea? Good idea?

 

 

In the past I've attempted to base a percentage of grades on attitude. The problem is that when I did that I found that I was constantly judging my son's behavior and since his behavior could easily range from having a meltdown to being a total angel all in the course of a single lesson, how do you grade that? Also, by the time the reporting period is over, the bad attitude he had a month before is long forgotten (by him).

 

I gave up on grading things like attitude and just stick with more tangible things like percent correct.

[Embassy]

In the past I've attempted to base a percentage of grades on attitude. The problem is that when I did that I found that I was constantly judging my son's behavior and since his behavior could easily range from having a meltdown to being a total angel all in the course of a single lesson, how do you grade that? Also, by the time the reporting period is over, the bad attitude he had a month before is long forgotten (by him).

 

 

I was thinking of assigning a daily percentage grade based on preassigned behaviors and then average them for the final grade. That would make one bad day have minimal impact. It would look more at the overall behaviors.

[babysparkler]

I give percentage grades for the major subjects pretty much from second grade on... math, grammar, etc. My kids (esp. my ds10) like to know how they are doing daily, so I keep their grades accessible in my lesson plan book, and transfer them into the computer software every several weeks so that I can print out a progress report or report card with cumulative grades.

 

As far as attitude, my kids earn "tickets" for this that they can redeem for prizes or cash.

[Dmmetler]

What does he want grades for? That may be the key right there.

 

In my case, my 1st grader asked for a report card so she can get the free game card at Incredible Pizza ;). Since I have to input grades for our cover school anyway, I'll just print out a copy then. And as long as she's mastering content steadily and making progress, I have no trouble giving her A's on a 1st grade report card for the work she's doing in a 2nd grade math book or a 3rd grade spelling program.

[Embassy]

What does he want grades for? That may be the key right there.

 

I asked him and he said "I thought it might be exciting." He is just the type to be motivated by grades.

[Ester Maria]

My oldest son is requesting that he receive grades and a report card this school year. Because learning comes so easily for him, I wanted to possibly make half of his grade come from attitude and effort. Bad idea? Good idea?

Very bad idea IMO.

 

I realize that, in the "American system", that's a very usual way of doing things - assigning certain percentage of the grade for things such as class attendance or participation, but I personally detested it ever since I learned about the concept.

 

In my opinion, the final grade needs to be exclusively the product of concrete knowledge and understanding, and nothing else. Attitude or not, poor or perfect attendance, participation or not - all of that is far less important. Sure, it's important from the point of view of character, but academically, if somebody knows their material, it's totally irrelevant whether they know it because they attended the lessons or because they learned it on their own, and it's totally irrelevant whether they participate in lessons or not (and if they're disruptive, you can always opt to ask them to leave - which is not true for homeschooling though). Knowledge is knowledge, no matter how "packed".

 

Likewise, lack of knowledge is lack of knowledge, even with the most polite, most enthusiastic and most nice-to-work-with student.

Lifting or lowering the grade for anything other than academic performance may as well be considered academic dishonesty, since the grade is influenced by something other than knowledge and understanding of the material.

 

If learning comes too easily for your son and he throws fits, he might work on material that's not challenging and hard enough.

Also, he is doing some work several grades above his age "grade level." I was planning on grading him at his level even if his report card says third grade. Good idea? Bad idea?

I have my kids officially graded by the school authorities, so what they grade is their "grade level" performance. Needless to mention, their results are brilliant that way.

 

But I personally grade that which they do, and don't take their age into account. If it's college-level Latin, it's college level Latin and graded that way and by those parameters, regardless of the age. My grades for them are somewhat different than their school's grades for them.

 

I suppose this is a question that each parent needs to address for him/herself. Some parents will opt to measure grade level performance and allow the kids to enjoy harder work without pressure, while the others will opt to accelerate the child officially, or have them grade everything on the level they actually do.

[Embassy]

Very bad idea IMO.

 

I realize that, in the "American system", that's a very usual way of doing things - assigning certain percentage of the grade for things such as class attendance or participation, but I personally detested it ever since I learned about the concept.

 

In my opinion, the final grade needs to be exclusively the product of concrete knowledge and understanding, and nothing else. Attitude or not, poor or perfect attendance, participation or not - all of that is far less important. Sure, it's important from the point of view of character, but academically, if somebody knows their material, it's totally irrelevant whether they know it because they attended the lessons or because they learned it on their own, and it's totally irrelevant whether they participate in lessons or not (and if they're disruptive, you can always opt to ask them to leave - which is not true for homeschooling though). Knowledge is knowledge, no matter how "packed".

 

Thanks for your advice. I appreciate it. I agree that grades should show knowledge alone when the are used for academic records or high school transcripts. But these grades are for us alone. We live in an area where we report to no one. With these grades I don't desire to measure knowledge because as a homeschooling parent I know what he knows and what he doesn't. My goal is to measure the learning process. Because things come easy to him I want him to understand that he should always try his best.

 

I will be giving him standardized tests this year as a measurement for his records. I am also making things much more difficult for him this year in his areas of strength.

 

This thread has helped me figure out what to do. I wrote about our grading scale here. I'd welcome further suggestions.

[nmoira]

I don't believe in assigning grades until advanced years because in the early years learning is very much about progression rather than attainment or achievement. A child might score 70% on a quiz testing knowledge of multiplication facts today, and 90% next month. Is the child an A student, ro a C student? This might be useful information to a classroom teacher with a couple dozen students to track, but gives little added value in a homeschool situation.

 

However, the main reason I don't like grades is that they're meaningless when the level of challenge is tailored to individual students, as is often the case with homeschoolers. In my ideal world, all students would score 75-80%, but at a level appropriate to their ability. Kids should do well enough to feel that they're progressing, but fumble enough to understand there's more to learn and to stretch their understanding and ability. I'm a firm believer that we need to make mistakes, and we learn best by challenging ourselves. I loath the phrase "an A/B/whatever student." Grades should not define us, because if you change the scale, what are we left with?

[Embassy]

I don't believe in assigning grades until advanced years because in the early years learning is very much about progression rather than attainment or achievement. A child might score 70% on a quiz testing knowledge of multiplication facts today, and 90% next month. Is the child an A student, ro a C student?

 

Good point. That is something to consider when deciding what should be graded. I'm also one not keen on giving grades at this point in his education, but my son wants to experience it.

[alisonslp]

We have assigned grades from the beginning for both achievement and for effort, but not attitude. We deal with attitude in different ways.

 

for achievement, we grade based on the level in which they are working, which is 2-4 yrs above their age level. So they tend to get B's and low A's. I write the grade levels of each subject on the report cards for reference. In NC, we have to do normed testing once a yr. I use cross level testing (WJIII) and print out scores for both their age and their working level so I can compare.

 

For effort, We also assign letter grades. Again, mostly A's and B's. If they are demonstrating appropriate effort then they get A. If they are repeatedly having careless errors or not paying attention to their writing, then they get lower grades. I grade quarterly so this grade is more my general opinion of their overall effort across several weeks. We talk about what needs improvement and why.

 

One more comment - After having the kids in school last year and seeing how they grade there, I realized that I am much harder on achievement and effort than the PS teachers are. What passes for an A in writing there would get a low B from me.

 

Alison

[EKS]

I'm also one not keen on giving grades at this point in his education, but my son wants to experience it.

 

If you're not wanting to assign grades, if it were me, I would just tell my son that grades aren't appropriate right now.

[Crimson Wife]

I would strongly encourage you to read this article by Alfie Kohn on the downsides to assigning grades.

 

I do mark the percent correct on tests I give and then review the missed problems. It's more of a gauge for me as to whether I'm challenging DD appropriately and whether there are certain concepts she needs more practice with.

 

If I had to assign grades for some reason, I'd go with the "satisfactory"/"needs improvement" system.

[katilac]

Why not evaluate effort and attitude separately? We had "citizenship" on our report cards until high school, and it referred to that type of stuff.

 

You can also evaluate and give a report card without giving grades, if you prefer. It sounds like he mostly wants the fun and excitement of sliding that report card out of the cool envelope, and hearing what the teacher has to say about him! If you do math tests, you could include a percentage score for math; otherwise, set it up just like a regular report card, with descriptive words and comments rather than grades. Math: Thomas has a strong grasp of decimals, the main concept studied this term, and continues to improve on the math facts. He scored 92% average on weekly tests and 88% on facts practice.

 

As far as what 'level' to grade him at, well, the only thing you can grade is the work he is doing!