One thing I never really thought about when I was discerning homeschooling was grading. Grading might seem like it would be top of the list on things to consider, but I suppose having a first grader knocks it down a lot! In fact, it never really crossed my mind until I was in a local Christian bookstore that sells homeschooling supplies. They had various homeschool report cards, and I realized I really hadn’t given any thought to whether (or how!) I would “grade” her work. Since our state has no requirements for homeschoolers to assign grades (do any, I wonder?), it was totally up to us.
It didn’t take much thought for me to nix the idea of a report card. For us, it just seemed very unnecessary for first grade. My daughter had gone to pre-K and Kindergarten at our local Catholic school, and they had been very laid back about grading, just sending out those quarterly progress reports with lots of “S” on them. Her daily work usually just had a sticker or a smile and the teacher didn’t really correct anything unless it was way off the mark.
I didn’t really see any reason for first grade to be much different. And really, math is the only subject where we really have something to grade. I don’t assign a letter grade because I don’t intend to assign a report card at this age, so it seems pointless right now. When we started I didn’t think to explain it to her, and she got a bit upset when I started putting x’s on her work! Some kids can be sensitive to grading. I let her know it was just a way to for us to help make sure that she understood the work. I let her grade her own math work now (using the teacher copy I have) if she wants to, which she thinks is a lot of fun! If she gets something wrong we go over it briefly and just mark the number wrong at the top.
To me, the most important part of first grade is becoming a proficient reader, so that’s where we spend a lot of our time. Of course, there’s not really any grading to be done there. Science is still mostly hands on and with a lot of fun reading, though we have had a couple homemade science “tests” for fun. Her math book has chapter reviews at the end of each chapter, and we take these little “tests” and put them in a folder. She likes to flip through occasionally and see how her work is becoming more difficult, it makes her proud!
I see us continuing in this vein for most, if not all, of grade school. To me, a standard grading system seems more important for older children thinking of college to have for a transcript. But for now this simple grading style suits us well!
Does your family use a grading system? Has it changed as your child has gotten older?
photo courtesy of ex.libris
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Our end-of-year evaluator always asks what grade our child has achieved in each subject.. she looks like a genius because she gets all A’s. But the fact is, if she gets something wrong, we keep reworking the problem until she gains a full understanding of the subject. Otherwise, what’s the point? She hasn’t learned it. And if homeschooling isn’t about learning, what IS it about?
We don’t do grades. I just mark what’s wrong on the kids’ papers and they fix it. Like Corey said, the whole point of doing the work is to understand it.
I probably will have to figure out a grading system for my middle schooler when she hits high school age, simply for keeping transcripts. However, no matter her initial grade, she’ll still be correcting and learning from her mistakes.
I started out doing grades this year, but then abandoned it after the first 9 weeks. I just thought, “What’s the point?” It just seemed silly at this point, because we work through the things that are difficult until we understand them.