My children, who are now in fourth and sixth grades, usually get good grades on their report cards. Do their report cards really tell how they are doing in school? -- Need More Information.
Answer: Report cards will give you a good general idea about how your children are doing in school. Make sure you study them in some detail. When you look at your children's grades, consider how they have done in these subjects in previous years. While a change of a grade in math from B to C could indicate problems, it might also be simply a teacher who grades harder. You need to look further than just the letter grades, because there are many different marks indicating such things as the level your children are working on, classroom behavior and participation, work habits and socialization skills.
Finally, read the teachers' comments so that you have a more thorough understanding of what your children have actually learned or accomplished. For example, if one of your children receives a B in spelling, a report-card comment could inform you that the child is generally a good speller but that he or she is having trouble forming plurals. Thus, teachers' comments often convey whatever information has not been completely explained by the grade. Comments can also give parents advice on how to help their children improve in a specific area.
To get an even better picture of your children's progress, you need to do more than look at their report cards. You should be looking at their work every day to clearly see the quality, correctness and difficulty of their current work. Plus, talking about what they are doing in the classroom gives you valuable insight into what they are learning, and it shows whether or not they are enthusiastic learners. When children are excited about school, good things are usually happening for them in the classroom. In addition, be sure to attend all parent-teacher conferences in order to get a complete picture of how well your children are doing.