This is something that just occurred to me...do you have to grade your child's schoolwork? At all levels (K and up)? If you buy curriculum, does it tell you how to grade the work? I am worried that I would be too lenient or maybe too harsh and not give a grade my child deserves. Math is kind of a no-brainer...either the answer is right or not. But when it comes to the more subjective work...what do you do?
We have a thread going right now about checking their work, I feel you need to do this daily. As far as grades, I do not grade their work at all unless it's a test built into what ever curricula I am using for that subject (like our math has timed tests... I don't grade these just write the time and have kiddo mark the problems wrong that are). I check the work, if it's wrong, I circle the number and send it back to them. They are to work on it until it's correct and I know they understand it. Then they move forward. For things like writing, we just discuss it, go over it together for spelling and grammar, and talk about how it could be done differently. Writing Strands has out a great book called Evaluating Writing, and really the principles in it could be carried over to most subjects.
I grade the subjects that are based on right/wrong answers. I do not grade our history work, because even though there is usually a right or wrong answers, some are more subjective and how a person interprets history. I pretty much grade Math, Spelling, Grammar....otherwise, I don't. I hope that makes sense.
My children are young yet and my state does not require keeping grades. When they are older, maybe grade 7 or 8, I will begin keeping an actual grade book as practice for high school. I feel like I will need the practice to keep everything straight for transcripts. We do like Sommer described, work until the child understands before we move on. I don't feel the need to grade things because we are always working to an "A".
I would not worry about grading at ALL in the young years. Later on you can do all that mess. You will know if your child "gets" something or not by checking their work without the added pressure to assign a grade. Later on and with subjective subjects you can possible get help from someone more knowledgeable or there are some texts that help you know how to grade. I am sometimes lenient on my son's work. For example in grammar if he is supposed to do 4 things to one sentence, I give him credit for each part. I don't count the whole thing wrong if he gets the other stuff right. If he has to identify the subject, verb, direct object and indirect object I will multiply the number of sentences by the number of objectives (4) and that is how many answers he can get right or wrong.
The only thing that really gets a grade at this point is dd's Math and her Latin quiz (since she needs to memorize the vocab). I do not keep a record of the grades I just grade the work and have her do corrections. Once dd is in middle school I will start introducing tests and grades gradually in the various subject areas. I do not bother keep a record until high school when I need the grades to complete a transcript for college.
This is what we do, too. I don't feel the need to put a numerical or letter grade on my kids' work. I require 90 percent mastery before moving on in any subject, and for subjective areas such as history or literature this is done through discussions, games and puzzles, and projects.
I grade things such as Math, Spelling tests, Vocab tests. Math is the only one I really pay close attention to their grade. I enter a "secret" grade based on what their original grade was when they turned in the assignment, and I don't share this with the kids. Any problems they get wrong, I tell them to redo (if I know they are struggling with the redo, I help them) so in the end, all the problems are correct. I do share their math test grades with them, and I don't allow redo on those. At the beginning of the year I was letting them do only the odd problems in Saxon Math, but both of them recently started to fall down to C's in their "secret" grades, and on their tests. So, that was an indicator to me that we need to complete all the problems at this point, and I recently started spending more time teaching the math. The grades have helped me gauge what they are retaining.
I'm also of the camp that no grades are necessary in the early years. It's more important to point out the mistakes and learn from them than to give a final grade and move on. I won't give grades or reports until 7th or 8th. Those years will be preparation for high school, when grades will be necessary for a transcript.
Okay, that makes me feel better. I won't worry about grades in subjective areas until the later grades then. I love the idea of going over material until they get it, which is part of why I want to home school in the first place. Thanks all!
I grade spelling and math. The program we use gives quizzes and tests, those are graded as well. I keep records just in case.
