Report Cards

The kids came home with their report cards yesterday. There are many things that have changed since we were kids - many things that haven't. First, kindergarten is more of a "progress report" than report card. There are these scoring metrics along an axis and the idea is that throughout the year the child moves from left to right across the scale. Jacob appears to be doing well. He's one space from the right in all categories except consistently following directions. :) Shock! Overall, though, he seems to be doing great.

One thing I don't really like about the report cards is the lack of individual comments. Jacob's teacher had written that he takes pride in his work, and the music teacher had added that he needs to pay more attention in music class. Otherwise we just have the metrics from the scales and a series of pluses and dots on specific skills. I guess we're going with the idea that he's doing fine and it there were any problems then they would be noted.

Allison's "report card" was more like a packet - 6 pages front & back. Granted, only one of those pages was really her report card, and it looks more like what I remember - a scale of "commendable, satisfactory, improving, and needs improvement" - I could probably whip out the report card from Hazel Dell days and find S+, S, S-, and U.

Allison's teacher provided more comments than Jacob's - but generally Allison is doing well in reading and social studies, has improved greatly over the year in writing and science, and is "inconsistent" with math - probably because she doesn't like it and therefore her performance will vary greatly with her mood (my opinion). The biggest changes from last year may be in the special subjects - art (which was awful last year but seems to be going really well with the new teacher), PE (teacher commented "world of difference") and music - which she's always loved and got kudos on her singing skills.

With Allison's report card were also standardized test scores - and she seems to be showing good improvement there too. Her raw reading score had not only improved, but her % score went up a lot from testing in the fall. There was only fall math scores, no winter, but she was well above average score in fall. So, I think she knows what she's doing with math, it's a matter of doing it when asked....

Then finally with Allison's packet were her progress on her IEP goals - all of which were sufficient (there are only two categories sufficient progress and insufficient progress). Part of me thinks that it honestly takes her 4 months to get "into" the school year. If we look back over the whole elementary school experience, it's good in winter/spring, poor in fall.

So, packets of written information, when I would probably rather just have a 30 minute conversation with each of their teachers instead. But both kids are doing well and making progress, so that's good.