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Elementary Report Cards

The newer style elementary report cards are generally loved or hated by parents, with nobody straddling the line. While relatively new to Readington schools, report cards that present a checklist of developmental skills and avoid the “traditional” A-B-C letter grades have actually been gaining ground in American schools for decades. Is this just another example of an educational fad championed by doe-eyed educators, or is this a real improvement over previous methods?

A June 1998 article in Education World by Linda Starr summarized some of the history behind elementary report cards in this country:

“The first student progress reports, introduced in the late 1800s, typically consisted of a list of basic skills and indicated which of those skills the student had mastered and which required additional practice.

In the first half of the 20th century, the skills list was gradually replaced by a number grade and then by a letter grade, both of which usually indicated a student's level of progress according to a specified numerical standard.

Finally, in the latter half of this century, as issues of competition, comparison, and self-esteem were raised, some elementary schools began to replace the letter grade report card with one featuring teacher comments and individualized assessment, in which students were evaluated according to standards that reflected their achievement in relation to their own effort and ability.”

Parents who have elementary aged children in school today may have had progress reports during their own time in elementary school that consisted of A-B-C grades, or that consisted of a short narrative about areas of reading, mathematics, etc., or that followed the S-N-I model: Satisfactory, Needs Improvement or Improvement Shown. Yet, most parents remember the A-B-C model which dominated in later elementary grades at that time. Compared to those memories, the legal sized elementary report cards used in Readington up to the fifth grade seem complicated and confusing, as this excerpt demonstrates:

The A-B-C model in comparison appears simpler and more objective. If your child receives a “B” in a subject, the assumption is that the meaning of that letter is clear and based on solid numbers on tests and class work. Is that assumption correct? Probably not. In reality, there is a gray area in scoring methods and a missing area in terms of meaning. Teachers in a particular school district do not necessarily assign the same weight to different tests or work, and they likely make subjective adjustments for individual children based on their own perception of each child’s effort. More importantly, a broad letter grade does not capture the subtleties of learning that, left unattended, can later derail an educational career. A letter grade of a “B” in language arts may indicate to a parent relative success, but the letter grade would fail to capture a child’s unique struggle with independent reading or with sentence organization. This level of granularity requires a different format.

Enter the newer style report cards now used in Readington in the early elementary grades. While parents can find this format confusing, full of jargon, and difficult to share with their child, it does serve to greatly expand the level of objective detail and to leave less room for subjective interpretations. The Readington report cards actually combine three layers of reporting. For each quarter there is a mark ranging from one to five in each general subject area. These 1-5 numbers correspond to a large degree to the A-B-C model familiar to most parents, yet their meaning is somewhat expanded over that model. Instead of an “A” meaning that in-class test scores and class assignments generally received very high percentages and that the child’s efforts were high, a “5” means that the child “demonstrates independent progress and applies knowledge.”

The second layer is more detailed, and, if time is taken to study the meaning, much more useful. Under each broad subject area, such as Language Arts or Mathematics, are the developmental sub-skills that make up that broad area. Under Mathematics in grade 5, sub-skills include items such as “Uses multiplication and division facts accurately to solve problems” and “Understands geometric concepts and solves related problems.” These sub-skills are actually related to what teachers refer to as “secure” learning goals and “developmental” learning goals. Simply translated, that means that there are some things a child of a certain age is expected to be able to do and some things he or she is still learning to do. These sub-skills are reported with four levels. A blank box indicates that satisfactory progress is being made, an “I” indicates that improvement is being made, an “X” indicates improvement is needed, and an “NC” indicates that the curriculum is not yet covering that skill.

An article written by Ann Matturro Gault on the Scholastic Parents website quotes a New Jersey mother who came to understand the benefit of this second layer of detail:

“Caroline Petrie, a mother of two, welcomes the insight her New Jersey school's report card provides. Although her daughter Kate is a whiz at spelling, she has trouble understanding the meanings of words. “I didn't realize the difficulty until I saw the report card,” Petrie says. “Kate got an E (excellent) in spelling, but received an N (needs improvement) for 'uses spelling words correctly in a sentence.” As a result, Petrie started emphasizing the words' definitions when helping Kate prepare for her weekly spelling test.”

The beauty of this system in Readington is that a parent can quickly scan down the page looking for “X” or “I” indicators that show a problem or a level of progress. The “X” marks stick out like a sore thumb and help call attention to very specific skills where a child needs help. By contrast, the empty spaces help parents ignore the areas where concern need not be applied.

Unfortunately, there are some subjects where this detailed model is not applied. Art, computers, library, science lab and other similar areas are simply reported with an “O” for outstanding, an “S” for satisfactory, and an “N” for needs improvement. It would be far more consistent and useful if these areas followed either the 1-5 model and/or the sub-skill model. These subject areas are the one aberration on the Readington progress reports.

The final layer of reporting are the short narratives written by teachers. These comments are necessarily short due to the number of kids in each classroom, but they can be the most useful. Forced to condense their thoughts into a short paragraph, many teachers use report card comments as a “gut-check” relating to a child’s true progress. They are subjective, yes, but they also serve as a place for a teacher to communicate his or her professional and personal thoughts about an individual child outside of class work and in-class tests. The comments are probably the first place a parent should look for unconsidered issues.

Are Readington progress reports an improvement over “traditional” reports? While legitimate arguments could be made about the physical layout and graphical conventions used in the reports, the concepts underlying the content are based on solid educational theory proven over decades of use. Having a written report of student progress in very specific areas of secure and developmental learning goals is an advantage that parents of today have over the previous generation. It does force parents and teachers both to spend more time and dig to a greater depth, but isn’t that a good thing? The A-B-C model of yesteryear allowed parents and teachers to take student progress too lightly and to gloss over subtle learning issues. It also served to reinforce the horse-race mentality of parents obsessed with competing with the Jones family next door.

That brings us to the final benefit of the Readington style reports. With simplistic letter grades gone, parents and educators are compelled to examine a child as an individual with unique strengths and weaknesses rather than an athlete or horse who must get to the finish line first. A child with a straight “A” report card may or may not be able to handle secure learning goals at grade level. There are ways for children to compensate for the short term and there are reasons for teachers to be subjective when an entire subject area is reduced to a single letter. On the other hand, evaluating a child in specific skill areas based on secure and developmental goals is far more objective and leaves very little doubt as to a child’s true progress.

Should parents share report cards with their children? Many experts would advise downplaying the importance of grades with your child and concentrating instead on the importance of being aware of strengths and weaknesses in specific areas and advocating a consistent effort to do the best that they can do. The Readington style of elementary report card serves that idea well.

In all, the Readington report cards may not be perfect, but they are heads above the “traditional” progress reports today’s parents knew as a child. Perhaps the bigger question is: are today’s parents up to the task of using these progress reports to the advantage of our children?