How do the rest of you home educators grade your children's progress? Here in Minnesota we are required to submit quarterly report cards to our local school district. The curriculum we are using this year really doesn't have much in the way of tests and quizzes since it really isn't workbook style learning. The only subjects I am able to grade unbiasedly are math and spelling.
How do some of you more seasoned educators gauge the progress of your youngsters in science, history, reading and all that good stuff? He reads the assigned materials and regurgitates it all with relative ease, so is that an 'A'?
Also, he is receiving music and art instruction through lessons outside the home to fulfill his fine arts requirement. Do you just speak with the instructors for those to insure that the student is doing well?
I made up a very nice looking report card on the computer, it's just filling it in that's posing the problem. Any advice would be much appreciated!!
**Update ~ Thank you so much for your prayers for our family's health! We are still going through a lot of Kleenex and trying to squeeze in those afternoon naps, but we are definitely improving!
7 comments:
I'm not a seasoned educator by any means, but I looked at a report card from someone who went to the public school in our district and then made one just like it. There aren't any A's, B's, etc.....it was all Satisfactory, Average, Needs improvement, etc.
Right, I got that part. How do you decide what Satisfactory or Average is though without actual scores from actual tests, etc? Or does Sonlight have more worksheet type gradable(is that a word)things than HOD?
Courtney,
I assume that you don't have a college education? If you do, you are not required to submit any kind of report card...
As for grading. Grade in a way that you feel is reasonable. In my opinion, all grading is relative. Think of what/how your kids are doing in regard to how well you feel your kids CAN do. Are they working to the best of their ability? Then the get S's or S+. If they could do better but choose not too, then Average. If they are really not living up to their potential at all, then NI. :)
~kjl
I just wanted to clarify that the reason I assume you don't have a college education is because of your statement about needing to submit the quarterlies. :) It was not a judgement call on your intelligence!! LOL
~kjl
Your assumption was correct, Kristin. I do not have a degree. My college education was interrupted when motherhood called.
I have yet to give any grades to my 3rd grader. I am starting to show him with his math and spelling, however that he gets so many right of of so many questions asked.
I think the S/S+ sounds like a good plan for now. As our years progress, I will grade more subjects, so that they can get used to knowing how the grade system works.
For the annual standard test, I paid a certified Peabody Individual Assessment Revised (PIAT R) instructor to administer a test (mostly oral). He really liked it and she gave us a percentile on each category as to how he measures to the national norm. Very interesting to see.
Have you stopped by my blog lately :)?
I'm probably not much help, but I'll throw in my 2 cents. (BTW, I don't have my degree either...also interrupted by motherhood...but my hubby is a licensed teacher, so that was my escape). The curriculum we are using is easy to grade on most things--there are tests and quizzes. You could possibly create your own tests to measure comprehension (as simple as a list of questions). Also check the curriculum guides to see if there is a rubric of any kind. For example, if a book report is assigned, my curriculum has a list of criteria that should be included and has point value assigned to each based on what the most important goals for that project are. This really helps me to judge/grade more fairly. If there is not a rubric included already, then before you look at your child's work, try to set your own rubric based on what the goals of the current lesson are. Finally, if I'm really struggling I take it (or a sample of work) to a friend who is a teacher and ask her to judge for me. When I was in school we didn't use number/letter grades until 4th or 5th grade. I think that the Christian school here uses them in 3rd grade, but 2nd grade was still a basic satisfactory scale for most subjects.
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