Why assign grades?

[ksoika]

I'm new to this.

 

All my PS pals are debating what their kids' report cards mean, the value of grading, the feedback on behavior, etc. etc. and it got me thinking about the purpose grades serve.

 

Do any homeschoolers assign grades to elementary level work? Do your kids get to work on something until it is correct or do you have a "reckoning" time when the work is done & you move on?

 

Parents with older kids... do middle school or high school kids receive grades? Beyond having them for a transcript, why have them?

 

Thanks,

Kelli

[SweetMissMagnolia]

as of NOW I don't really do grades--I will assign a grade according to how many were incorrect if we're doing a test but he has to correct them- I will put it in the grade book I have to keep track of what we do everyday but other than that I don't really do grades or report cards......I guess I do that to keep track of progress and to see how well he's catching onto whatever we're "testing"--I will stick with something until he learns it--if it is becoming frustrating or stressful for him I might move on to something else or try a different approach...

[QuirkyKidAcademy]

I do not give grades for one simple reason: we don't move on until he's mastered the skill. He's using TT4, which does give grades, but if that grade is less than 90, we remediate until the skill is solid. (We are not required to keep records.)

[Farrar]

We assess in various ways. We do not do grades. I find them to be flat, one-dimensional assessments that don't tell you much. Besides, homeschooling allows you to teach until it's "A" work. Or to pause and know you're going to come back to it when a child is developmentally ready to make it "A" work. Grades just make less sense in that situation.

[Parker Martin]

I've always figured that grades were a tool for managing assessment with large populations. A teacher of thirty can't go at the pace of mastery for each student because it would be unworkable, thus grades.

 

Therefore, I don't see the point for using them in homeschooling. But I could be missing something.

[eewaggie99]

I dropped grades almost immediately. It made my children anxious if the work wasn't an A and I didn't want them to focus on the grade, I wanted them to focus on the mistakes. We re-do mistakes and review the subject if I don't feel they have mastery.

 

Plus, grading is a huge hassle. How much to assign to what assignments and what's the weight? Blech!

 

I also don't give formal tests.

 

I agree with the other posters. Grades are a communication tool between the teacher and the parent. You are the teacher so why talk to yourself? Assuming you don't already do so...

[Dmmetler]

I don't put grades on my DD's work-if it's not right, it gets corrected and we do more to review and make sure it's mastered before we move on, but I have to report grades to a cover school (which explicitly states that in the elementary grades, they expect you to go at your child's pace, work to mastery, and that they're MORE than fine with everyone having all A's in elementary school as long as the child is making progress) and I print a report card for DD once a quarter at the same time her friends get theirs. It bothers her when they start bragging about being on Principal's list and the like-and she really likes being able to get the free game card at Incredible Pizza that they give for a good report card. I figure I can handle a couple of bad pizza meals a year so she can use them if it makes her feel like she's not missing anything by being homeschooled. (She's been getting a lot of "that's weird" comments from those wonderfully socialized PS kids at gymnastics lately...sigh....)

[Mandy in TN]

I'm new to this.

 

All my PS pals are debating what their kids' report cards mean, the value of grading, the feedback on behavior, etc. etc. and it got me thinking about the purpose grades serve.

 

Do any homeschoolers assign grades to elementary level work? Do your kids get to work on something until it is correct or do you have a "reckoning" time when the work is done & you move on?

 

Parents with older kids... do middle school or high school kids receive grades? Beyond having them for a transcript, why have them?

 

Thanks,

Kelli

I am in TN. Every legal way (of which I am aware) requires reporting grades.

 

You can register with the state. This requires turning in grades.

 

You can register with an umbrella school. All the ones that I have looked at require grades.

 

You can enroll your child in an accredited distance learning program. All of these would assign a grade.

 

You can register with K12 through the state. K12 will assign the grades.

 

If there was no requirement to assign grades in K-8, I probably wouldn't bother. In high school, I would still want to send a transcript to colleges that looked like a transcript from any other school. I would do this, because I feel that colleges handle things better if the materials they receive look similar to those that they typically receive. I could be totally incorrect, because my oldest only applied to one small private college. The transcript sent from our umbrella was a normal looking transcript. We were not asked for any additional information or to jump through any special hoops.

 

HTH-

Mandy

[NanceXToo]

We do not do "grades" over here.

 

I pulled my daughter out of school toward the end of third grade and homeschooled her for the rest of 3rd, all of 4th, all of 5th, and we're currently doing 6th and I've never graded her on anything. I don't see a point to it, other than for a high school transcript.

 

When she does an assignment, we go over it together, discuss any errors or problems, and she fixes them. Easy.

 

(Actually, we use TT for math and that automatically keeps grades but that's about it).

[Mommy22alyns]

I don't give the girls grades. They take tests and quizzes in math/grammar, but that's the only time they see a grade. I do HS through an umbrella school, so I do assign grades twice a year. But they've pretty much earned no-brainer A's and they don't know it. Becca especially would fret over grades given the opportunity.

[nov05mama]

We assess in various ways. We do not do grades. I find them to be flat, one-dimensional assessments that don't tell you much. Besides, homeschooling allows you to teach until it's "A" work. Or to pause and know you're going to come back to it when a child is developmentally ready to make it "A" work. Grades just make less sense in that situation.

 

:iagree:

[OrdinaryTime]

I don't do serious grading, like a full report card or transcript. (Well, I only have a 1st and K'er so nothing is too serious yet!) But I do give some grades on a daily/weekly basis. When we get to the end of a math unit, I'll pick a particular worsheet as a "test," or a certain handwriting page, or a have the child give a presentation, and then I'll give a grade to them. This is a total result of my kids' desires. My kids, especially my eldest, truly want to be graded. My son LOVES when I grade his math or handwriting and works twice as hard if he knows it is going to be grades. In fact, he often insists I grade something rather than just go over it with him. Sometime my kids' will even grade each other, especially on presentations, making up their own scoring cards. Weird. I think my kids are just naturally very competitive and find grades oddly reassuring.

[boscopup]

I only put grades on math tests, and that's really for my own benefit to see if I'm challenging him enough or too much or if it's just right. If he's getting a 100 on every test, we're probably needing to move ahead a bit more. If he's getting 70s on the tests, we need to slow down (that hasn't happened yet).

 

He likes tests and grades, but that is the only subject I do them, and I don't worry about cumulative grades or whatever.

 

I do have to report "grades" to the cover school, but that's just a letter grade, and I make something up. The cover school really doesn't care. They mainly want to see that I'm doing something. The state only requires a list of days absent. I have typically listed all A's on his report to the cover school, since if he were in school, he'd have gotten A's in those subjects. He's learning what we're doing. He's not struggling with anything. So I feel fine giving him A's.

 

In high school, I'll definitely do grades, and I'll do "real" grades, so his transcript will be accurate.

[SkateLeft]

We don't do grades in elementary, but sometimes, my kids *want* a grade for something that they worked really hard on. In those cases, I humor them by putting a star or a happy face with "100%" or something at the top of their paper. :D

[khall]

I like the post that said that in PS, grades are a communication tool. Most of the people that are saying they do give grades are saying that it's a requirement for their state, or virtual school, or transcript. So maybe grades in the homeschool setting are a way to communicate progress to whoever is interested in whether or not we're making progress? In the past I've never done grades, and the kiddos have taken standardized tests to meet our state requirement. This year we are doing a portfolio review instead, and I am grading work because of that. I can't remember exactly how I explained this to the kids, but it must have been good because they hand me work and say "can you grade this so mrs. c knows what I did?". They usually are handing me a red pen too! :lol:

[JennyD]

I am in TN. Every legal way (of which I am aware) requires reporting grades.

 

You can register with the state. This requires turning in grades.

 

You can register with an umbrella school. All the ones that I have looked at require grades.

 

You can enroll your child in an accredited distance learning program. All of these would assign a grade.

 

You can register with K12 through the state. K12 will assign the grades.

 

If there was no requirement to assign grades in K-8, I probably wouldn't bother. In high school, I would still want to send a transcript to colleges that looked like a transcript from any other school. I would do this, because I feel that colleges handle things better if the materials they receive look similar to those that they typically receive. I could be totally incorrect, because my oldest only applied to one small private college. The transcript sent from our umbrella was a normal looking transcript. We were not asked for any additional information or to jump through any special hoops.

 

HTH-

Mandy

 

Mandy, are you sure that the state requires grades? We recently moved to TN and I registered with our LEA. My understanding was that all I had to file was the Notice of Intent (or whatever that letter is called), which I sent in back in August, and I have right here the Home School Attendance form, and there is nothing on it about grades, just days and hours. I didn't think there was anything else I had to file, but perhaps there is ....?!!

 

Absent any requirements, no grades here. They don't seem to serve any purpose in our homeschool environment. As for the high school level, that's a long way away, but I find it so strange that colleges actually want to see homeschooler transcripts with parent-generated grades. The only reasonable explanation I can think of is that they make their decisions using other information but need some sort of data to give to U.S. News and World Report.

[jayb842]

I do give grades and so does Calvert. I use homeschool tracker and Calvert's teacher service. We keep grades and attendance. I grade on how he does alone then we correct and master the material. I have an ex-husband and ex-in-laws that I always want to keep very good records for them. If anything was ever said about his education or home life I have it all on file and film. Ds is very motivated to get A’s.

[Mandy in TN]

Mandy, are you sure that the state requires grades? We recently moved to TN and I registered with our LEA. My understanding was that all I had to file was the Notice of Intent (or whatever that letter is called), which I sent in back in August, and I have right here the Home School Attendance form, and there is nothing on it about grades, just days and hours. I didn't think there was anything else I had to file, but perhaps there is ....?!!

I apologize. You are correct. The first year I homeschooled I went to my board of education and they required me to jump through a lot of hoops. I felt like they were harassing me. Now the board of education for my county has a letter up that includes this list:

• The parent must provide annual notice to the director of schools prior to the beginning of each school year of their intent to conduct a homeschool.

  
  

• The parent must provide the names, number, age and grade levels of the children to be homeschooled.

  
  

• The parent must provide the location of the school.

  
  

• The parent must provide the proposed curriculum to be offered in the homeschool.

  
  

• The parent must provide the proposed hours of instruction for the homeschool.

  
  

• The parent must, at a minimum, provide proof of a high school diploma or GED.

  
  

• The parent must maintain attendance records and submit them at the end of each school year to the director of schools.

  
  

• The parent must provide at least (4) hours of instruction per day for 180 days each school year.

  
  

• The parent must ensure their children in grades 5 and 7 take the TCAP assessment. Parents of ninth grade students must ensure their child participates in the appropriate state assessment.

  
  

• The parent must consult with the director of schools in the event their child does not perform at grade level on the required assessment. IN some cases, the director of schools may require the parents to enroll in a public, private, or church-related school.

  
  

• The parent must submit evidence the homeschooled student has been vaccinated as required under Tennessee Law.

  
  

I am sure that my county will want everything on this list and anything else they can convince you to turn over. After the fiasco that came with testing my 5th grade son that year, we decided to use an umbrella that operates under the Jeter Memorandum.

 

But I was wrong, your LEA should not ask for grades.

Thanks for the correction-

Mandy

[Homeschooling6]

My kids like for me to grade their work :tongue_smilie:. We do have a few programs like AG that use grades. On the AG test I add all the points and give dd her grade.

Latin test I give grades too because my kids want me too. It's nothing real serious. I just gauge by how many they missed. Although I have an EZ grader as well :001_huh:.

I do have my children correct missed answers and it will bring their grade up:D.

It's actually a motivater here, they want A's or 90% and above.

I don't record it in a ledger or anything (I probably should).

But then again this is the homeschooling mama who uses a bell, stands at the whiteboard to teach, has the children raise their hands etc. :leaving:

[Mandy in TN]

Here in NY you have to submit a quarterly report. You either have to submit a grade or some sort of statement about progress. I do the statement about progress. I think that has a heck of a lot more meaning to it.

My umbrella has a quarterly report for elementary school that includes an evaluation section, but there is also a place for a grade. I agree that the grade section on the elementary school quarterly report is totally pointless.

 

In elementary school, if I need to place my child in school, regardless of whatever grades I assign, my local public school would have to take him and most private schools have admissions exams to help determine admission and placement. Either way the mommy grades that I spent time recording will probably not be considered. Actually, this is likely true of all the elementary records kept by my homeschool umbrella.

 

OTOH- like I said the college didn't ask for anything but the high school transcript, ACT scores, community college transcript, admission essay, and personal interview. The same things that they require of everyone! Yeah, it shocked me. Perhaps, it says something about how the college views high school grades in general. Maybe the grades from various high schools are so difficult to compare that they just want a list of courses. Then, perhaps they can sort of guess generally some of the exposure that the student has had.

 

Mandy

[KarenNC]

Our state has no requirements for grading/portfolio review/etc, but I have started using grades more this year (6th grade) as a communication tool for my daughter. It really helps her see her progress, as well as the effect of blowing off something, a lesson she is learning now rather than in high school or later. They are a good motivator for her.

 

This year, she has a grade in any subject that has tests and I only grade the tests. For us, that's math, English (covers grammar, spelling, vocabulary primarily--some writing), science, Spanish. I'm not doing grades in history or literature. She has a history of careless errors, not wanting to read all the directions, not wanting to show her work in math, etc, so I will break down the grade that way. For example:

___ pts missed due to not writing units

___ pts missed due to not following the directions carefully

___pts missed due to arithmetic errors

 

Her attention to detail is improving. She also is learning how one grade affects one's average, as I give her the average every time we do a test in that subject and talk about what she'll have to make on the rest of them to get an A (90 or up right now). One thing I haven't done yet is the midterm or final semester test---may start that next year. She is required to fix errors, but that doesn't change her grade, and we are working on fixed deadlines as well. No extensions, retakes, etc. I want her to practice dealing with that now while the stakes are relatively low than later when it goes on a transcript.

 

I want to prep her for working with instructors other than me for academics, since we are reaching the point where she will benefit from more outside coursework where she will be accountable (either for a teacher with more knowledge in the subject or just for her own developmental need for independence). This will be true whether we do online courses at home, dual enrollment, full-time public school, etc.

[Ester Maria]

Assigning grades is good because it provides a feedback for the child and teaches them to estimate their knowledge better, especially if explained: "This is for a B, but had you written such and such differently and if you had not had these two careless spelling mistakes, it would have been an A."

 

I do agree that children should not be frequently graded, or graded at all, in the very earliest years, but on the whole, I find grading to be a useful tool.

[JennyD]

I apologize. You are correct. The first year I homeschooled I went to my board of education and they required me to jump through a lot of hoops. I felt like they were harassing me. Now the board of education for my county has a letter up that includes this list:

• The parent must provide annual notice to the director of schools prior to the beginning of each school year of their intent to conduct a homeschool.

  
  

• The parent must provide the names, number, age and grade levels of the children to be homeschooled.

  
  

• The parent must provide the location of the school.

  
  

• The parent must provide the proposed curriculum to be offered in the homeschool.

  
  

• The parent must provide the proposed hours of instruction for the homeschool.

  
  

• The parent must, at a minimum, provide proof of a high school diploma or GED.

  
  

• The parent must maintain attendance records and submit them at the end of each school year to the director of schools.

  
  

• The parent must provide at least (4) hours of instruction per day for 180 days each school year.

  
  

• The parent must ensure their children in grades 5 and 7 take the TCAP assessment. Parents of ninth grade students must ensure their child participates in the appropriate state assessment.

  
  

• The parent must consult with the director of schools in the event their child does not perform at grade level on the required assessment. IN some cases, the director of schools may require the parents to enroll in a public, private, or church-related school.

  
  

• The parent must submit evidence the homeschooled student has been vaccinated as required under Tennessee Law.

  
  

I am sure that my county will want everything on this list and anything else they can convince you to turn over. After the fiasco that came with testing my 5th grade son that year, we decided to use an umbrella that operates under the Jeter Memorandum.

 

But I was wrong, your LEA should not ask for grades.

Thanks for the correction-

Mandy

 

Oh, no problem, just wanted to make sure that I hadn't missed anything!

 

I did have to supply pretty much all that info, but it was fairly painless, if you don't count the hour I spent digging through boxes in the garage in 100 degree heat looking for my high school diploma. The form itself was very short, and I filled it out minimally. The home school office folks were surprisingly on the ball (I'm in Davidson County). I just assumed that my forms were going directly into a black hole, but I got an official letter back within a few days, which surprised me no end. Who knew Tennessee would be so efficient!

 

Anyway, sorry for pulling the discussion off topic. :001_smile:

[mom2att]

I started assigning grades when dd was in 7th & 8th grade and her work became worth of high school credit status. Before that, no grades.

[silliness7]

I'm new to this.

 

All my PS pals are debating what their kids' report cards mean, the value of grading, the feedback on behavior, etc. etc. and it got me thinking about the purpose grades serve.

 

Do any homeschoolers assign grades to elementary level work? Do your kids get to work on something until it is correct or do you have a "reckoning" time when the work is done & you move on?

 

Parents with older kids... do middle school or high school kids receive grades? Beyond having them for a transcript, why have them?

 

Thanks,

Kelli

 

My kids like having the feedback. This was my first year to do report cards with grades. I hadn't done it before but with my oldest in 9th grade I thought since I was doing it for him I'd do it for everybody. They loved it. I wish that I had done it sooner.

 

ETA: I agree with a pp who says that it helps the children pay attention to detail. Without grades I could count math problems wrong and they would shrug it off with, oh I just forgot such and such I *know* how to do it. They'd correct it and move on. No biggie. But I'm trying to teach them that there is value in paying attention and getting it right the first time, double checking your work before handing it in. And we do correct everything and stick with something til it's mastered.

Edited October 29, 2011 by silliness7

[ksoika]

Thanks for your thoughts, everyone!

 

Mine are little (and we live in TX where we don't need to report or join a group, etc.) so I hadn't thought through the whole philosophy of grading.

 

It's funny because my friends who are fretting about kinder grades and trying to figure out how to move a kid from 3's to 4's or from B's to A's in a specific area are the same ones who riled against the red-yellow-green behavior feedback system that's really popular with preschools in our area. It seems that grades, when used as more than a communication tool between school and parent, serve a similar function. It sounds to me that the folks who assign them in later years use them to give immediate feedback about attention to detail or thoroughness.

 

As someone pointed out, I don't need to communicate between teacher and parent.... because I *do* already talk to myself! :D But I like the idea that some sort of evaluative system could someday reinforce my daily (sometimes minute-by-minute) reminders to work with care and complete their work.

[Mandy in TN]

When I went to that conference at Valley Forge, one of SWB's presentations was on how to create a transcript with grades for college. She said it was goofy and pointless, but that they will want to see it.

Did she say how the homeschool assigned grades will be viewed and, if it is pointless, why they want to see it?

 

Thanks-

Mandy

[laughing lioness]

We are working off of a mastery paradigm. The kids do the work till they get it. No grades are assigned. The positive of this is that kids are not working towards dangled carrots but understanding (that is, if they, or the parent, do not abort the effort). The downside is that they don't realize that deadlines and work required might be non-negotiable when they leave the cozy nest of home.

We do participate in a Tutoring Center (academic class day- we pay teachers, homework is assigned, grades are given). This is a bit different in that there are non-negotiable deadlines and grades. My kids HATE to show up to class un-prepared so they are motivated to get the work done, and they do.

Transcripts have been needed so far for our 2 kids that have graduated from homeschool. They did not "fail" or get "C's" in Alg I or Chem (as she might have in a traditional school setting. She took Alg I over and got an "A". Also, we just left Chem off of her transcript. Their GPA's were not adversly affected from a grade stand-point, but from a subject stand=point- kwim. That's just what we decided to do. Others would decide differently, I'm sure. We assigned grades based on rubrics we established and on a carnegie unit.

[RootAnn]

I do assign grades. Mostly, the easy-to-grade subjects like spelling & math. Other subjects which have built-in assessments/tests are also graded easily.

 

I even have a writing rubric this year for the stuff my older does for Writing Tales & a slightly different one for the mini-biographies & small essays they older two are writing for their History of Science notebooks.

 

I find they give my husband a good idea of progress, how the kids are understanding their work, and a motivator for my kids.

 

Plus, it is practice for me if we do homeschool high school.

[momto2Cs]

I don't do grades. Grades are a communication tool for schools. I don't need them to communicate with myself. That said, I can see the need for a transcript of some sort for high school to be used to apply to colleges, but again, that's a tool to communicate with a school.

 

:iagree: Same here. Unless the kids ask for a grade, which happens maybe twice a year.

[9763653]

I don't put grades on my DD's work-if it's not right, it gets corrected and we do more to review and make sure it's mastered before we move on, but I have to report grades to a cover school (which explicitly states that in the elementary grades, they expect you to go at your child's pace, work to mastery, and that they're MORE than fine with everyone having all A's in elementary school as long as the child is making progress) and I print a report card for DD once a quarter at the same time her friends get theirs. It bothers her when they start bragging about being on Principal's list and the like-and she really likes being able to get the free game card at Incredible Pizza that they give for a good report card. I figure I can handle a couple of bad pizza meals a year so she can use them if it makes her feel like she's not missing anything by being homeschooled. (She's been getting a lot of "that's weird" comments from those wonderfully socialized PS kids at gymnastics lately...sigh....)

 

 

We carry on until mastery as well, and grading does not make much sense in such a situation. I don't give my first grader tests, but rather we make progress all the time and move on once a skill is mastered.

 

We are also enrolled in an umbrella school, but unlike the school mentioned above, they seem very formalistic about grading. A recent newsletter included a complaint about parents who give their students "all As", saying that those parents lose their credibility and that an A means "more than just completed work".

 

We have not had to report grades yet as it's only once per semester, but I am already dreading this. Homeschooling early elementary and grading just does not make sense to me, and I see it as my duty to carry on with a particular skill until the work would receive an A. We need the umbrella school, but this has been on my mind lately.