My kids take tests. I grade the tests. If they make below 70% they must re-study and take the test again. I make them pass every test with a 70 (preferably better!) before moving on to the next lesson. At PS I suppose a D would be 'passing', but not at MY school :lol: So my question comes in here. What do you tell people when they ask what kind of grades your kids make? You know, auntie so and so asks the kiddos or you 'are you doing good in school?' well? Of course they are, cause if they don't I just make them re-do it! So at that rate, I don't see the point of keeping up with 'grades' I just make sure they pass before going on. How do you all do this?
Aside from a weekly spelling test (and the quizzes built into DS1's Teaching Textbooks Math) I rarely give tests. When people ask about their grades, I say they're "A" students. Because, they are...we don't move on til they've grasped whatever concept we're working on and when they do take tests and quizzes, they almost always get 100%. I guess when we hit the high school years there will be more of that sort of thing, but for now I like it like this.
I'm like Kari, my kids have no choice but to be "A" students! LOL. I will give grades if they have a quiz or a test. However, I do not do report cards. I suppose we have to start doing that for junior high with transcripts, right? UGH..I'll worry about it then. lol.
Well I test my kids very regular. I figure if they are learning they should be able to do well on a test. Several times I 'thought' dd1 knew something, only to see she crashed a test on it. No point in going on. Now that she has realized we WILL test and she MUST learn it, she does so much better. She started out making mostly D's and F's on her tests. I started grounding her. No tv, computer, play time with any other kids, ect. She shaped up pretty quick. Now she really does study and we have a test each week on each subject at the end of the week. If she fails any under 70, she is grounded for the weekend and retakes the test on Mon first thing. so far that has worked for her. I figure eventually they will have to test anyway, might as well start now. I record grades in the log book, but only the ones that are 70 or better. Anything under is not acceptable.
Since both of my children that I'm home schooling are in high school, I have to keep track with their grades. Right now, they are using SOS (Switched on Schoolhouse) which keeps track of it all, so it's very simple. We will probably switch to TT for my ds's Algebra after Christmas, so we'll see how that one goes. My dd is a straight A student all the time! Always has been!!! She's just blessed in that way, I suppose. My oldest was the same way. My youngest is absolutely brilliant, although it doesn't always show through his school work. If he makes a grade on a lesson or quiz that I think can be better, I reset the work and he will do it over again. As a result, his grades are generally A's and B's. When he was in secular school (not public), he was doing good to make B's and C's.
With SOS I make them pass with a C or better on quizes and tests. If they get less I clear out the quiz/test and make them redo the entire thing. I will usually go through it as well since sometimes they put the right answer in but their spelling was WAY off and go from there. Jake put a capital letter in yesterday which wasn't supposed to be there and so he got it wrong. Now I do take away stuff until they pass a quiz (Jacob is the one testing this right now) and I let them "do over" 1x per day. I know this sounds odd - but he does "get" the stuff that he is being quizzed on..... he's just rushing and trying to get done fast so doesn't pay attention. Irritated him yesterday when I stopped school and said I was done and he can redo everything tomorrow and he couldn't play on any electronics until after he passed.
I don't really give grades. They have tests in Math only but I use those more as a way to help figure out what they are retaining. For example, they watch me grade and if they miss 3 problems then we'll work on figuring out that problem together and I'll walk them through it again until they get it.
I don't give grades or tests.. well we do a spelling test weekly, but next year we are dropping that, and he has quizes built into his TT math.. which grades all of his assignments. I know there is a time when we will have to have grades for transcripts, but even then I don't think I will be handing out tests, it's just not what we are about in our adventure.
mine too, I mostly have As one B that I passed ds along on in Math because it was true and false and you only get one chance on that, we go over it sohe knows he did it wrong but generally its As and Bs , my kids have not always had grades until they started asking for them. efore that they just said " I get them all right or I can't go on.
We don't do testing at all. We do discussions and narratives. ok, well I do have them take the book adventure quizes online about the books they read. I record grades for math. and for special writing assignments. and attitude. This is for use as a bludgen more than anything else. like the other day when Dutch decided 5th grade math was tooooo hard and he needed to go back to 4th grade. I could get out the grades and say you are getting 90-100 on most of your assignments...I can't move you back.
yeah, I should mentioned we dont record anything realy until high school grades cause they have to be saved for future
I also use tests only to decide if we are ready to move on or not. I try not to stress the kids out by saying letter grades. I just mention whether or not I feel they understand the material. We usually discuss how they feel about a topic too before moving on. It works very well for us.
With my older kids (11 and 13), I do keep track of grades. I don't do report cards, but will show them what their grade is in a course if they ask me. I keep track of their grades in math, English, history, French and science. I use a spreadsheet to keep track of the marks and weight them how I feel that subject should be weighted (eg, math is mostly weighted on tests, whereas English is about equal between tests and essays). If they do poorly on a test or assignment, they will re-do it and I will keep both grades. My kids will be going to public high school, so they're interested in their grades, and I feel I should keep track of them to show the high school when they're picking courses (to do advanced math in high school, they have to have an 85% in grade 9 math). My 6 year old doesn't get grades, but we only do three formal subjects (English, science and math) and will probably start with grades in about 4th grade. That said, my older kids do generally make 80% or higher in all their subjects.
We don't do grades either. I am like alot of moms that posted, I have my girl correct her papers so she has no choice but to have 100% correct. I figured that if she corrects her paper after it is done then she is not going to learn things that aren't correct.
We don't really test. I observe them doing a lesson without assistance to see if they are grasping the concept. I grade one child's work the other one I don't. My older boy hates grades- if does not score perfectly he is really hard on himself. My younger son loves grades and wants every paper graded.
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=mathusee#p/u/18/cgNTSLK_Sig - I really like this method of grading
I want to live in a world where grades aren't given. But I realize for high school that it may be easier to document what we do if I have graded some of it. That being said, I will probably do as some have suggested- letting him do somethings over to have a chance to improve. I am somewhat of an all or nothing person. I started out wanting to grade everything and do everything like a school. Now I would prefer chucking it all and unschool, but I don't think that is wise. So I am going to go halfway in between.
The dreaded tests.......In the younger years, anything below high school, I gave very few tests. The only reason I did give a test was to have the child get used to taking tests. In high school my oldest had tests and my youngest will when he reaches high school. The reason for the tests in high school was for the sake of giving an end-of-year grade and for making transcripts. Tests never motivated my children. Tests just stressed my children.
I did a sort of combination. Some courses, especially the 3 R's, I did test, but it was honestly more for my benefit than theirs. It was so that I could be assured that they UNDERSTOOD the concepts we had worked on before we moved ahead. A test gave me a good idea of which concepts they struggled with and exactly which part of the concept they had trouble with. My kids went through stages where they wanted report cards and I gave them one. I had all sorts of systems I used. Like if they took a test and corrected their mistakes then I raised their grade. But I never kept their grades for records except for a few subjects that I included in their HS transcripts, like math and chemistry. Most of the time they got all A's as long as I felt they were making honest effort and trying their best. My son was the exception. He reached a point where he refused to do any schoolwork, refused to complete any assignments, etc. This was at about 16. It gradually got worse from about 13 to 16. By 17 he dropped out of school and went on an apprenticeship. I kept up enough schooling so he was not "truant", but he had absolutely no interest in school at all, and wouldn't even try. No matter what I took away or how I disciplined. It was a very hard time for me and for him. He is still working out those issues in his life. For him, his report cards and grades reflected his lack of effort. But that was after he was older and had more control over his own life.
Tests are the reason we left PS in the first place. #1 son is brilliant in math, but 3rd grade public school test drilling was teaching him to hate it. So, we pulled him out 3 years ago, and now he applies himself to physics, astronomy, and engineering, where his math aptitude and passion for the subjects can really take off. His success is measured in happiness, not grades.
