grades question

[Homeschooling Again]

I hs my 4th grade ds pt (am he goes to ps, pm he comes home with me). He just got his report card today and I have mixed feelings. I of course don't grade him, but understandably the school does. I see grades as a tool for a teacher who has to track the progress of her many students rather than an accurate representation of a student's understanding or ability. He did fine, but not great according to the grades. From my point of view, though, I want to use these grades as a way to focus on some of the things with which the teacher finds he's having difficulty. Do you guys think this is the right way to approach his grades or should I be more concerned that he didn't "ace" his school tasks? Does anyone else share my philosophy about grades. I don't see them as being particularly helpful for students but rather a way for the teacher to determine how much of the lessons are understood to what extent by which students.

[msk]

I always thought grades were based on cumulative point totals for the semester or quarter-- are your son's? In that case, the semester grade is a summary of a bunch of smaller tests or assignments-- it's telling you how well your son did overall on a bunch of separate assessments.

 

I agree that looking at the final semester grade as a single letter or number won't tell you much in terms of how to help him improve, but going back to the individual assessments should! Are there things he's consistently missed on tests or assignments, topics that gave particular trouble when others went well, etc? The final report card grade should be a reflection of more general patterns emerging from all the separate assessments he's had.

 

Teaching him to keep track of his individual assignments now and work on improving things as he goes along will be a really useful skill in high school and college-- his final grade for a semester should never be a surprise to him, just a reflection of the improvements (and skills that need improvement) he and his teacher have been keeping track of (via individual assignment grades) all through the semester. You'd be amazed at the number of students in college courses who don't seem to do this!