Do you share full report card with your early elementary kid

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you all share comments from conferences or not?

“Mrs Larlo is going to talk to you today Mom”
“Yep”

“Did you talk to Mrs Larlo??”
“Yep”

I’m just finding this to be a weird consensus opinion on the board. What about pediatrician appointments? Do you hide all their health info from them too? Dental?

What value will a 3rd grader get from knowing if she's a 3 or 4 in "creatively using art"? If my kids were consistently getting 1s or 2s, it would warrant a general conversation and new approaches/supplements about school or a particular subject but the current grading didn't make much sense

[Anonymous]

* current grading doesn't make sense as a means to communicate with young kids

[Anonymous]

I always share a report card or anything I've heard from a teacher during a conference with my kid. I've done that since she was in kindergarten. I don't know why I wouldn't. She should know what is being said about her performance at school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ds7’s report card has a long narrative and number ratings across all sorts of things. I’m conflicted - I think on one hand sharing it with him would be both validating and motivating to improve, on other hand I’m not sure hearing things like “extremely talented in xyz” or “needs to work on not interrupting and respecting learning process of others” is great (versus me giving high level but not showing him actual numbers and reading exact words)

Modern report cards that follow best practices are, in my opinion, very long and technical. So much so, that I feel they have diminished value.

When my elementary PTA had a parent vote on older, shorter format vs. a two-page standards-based report card, I voted for the shorter one (but my preference lost and we got the fancier one). For my kids, who mostly got 3s with some 4s (well above grade level) and some 2s (developing), the feedback was barely actionable although quite a lot of work for teachers to prepare. As an MBA whose mom has an Ivy Master's in Early Childhood Development, I know what the school is trying to do but I don't think it's working. I also have issues with the IB 1-8 grades that my middle school and high school try to implement.

For my elementary schoolers, I gave them a quick topline with some praise then asked questions about any 2s. They had no more interest in reading the report card than a phone book. The format was ratings overkill. I also think these formats are harder for less educated parents to understand because of how the rubrics are worded in education industry professional jargon.

This make a lot of sense in how I actually interpret the report card.

[Anonymous]

Our school didn’t give any grades until 3rd. If there were any academic or behavioral concerns, I would have found a gentle way to broach it, but I didn’t need to. By about 4th/5th grade they knew about what their grades were and wanted to see the report card.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hope people engage with this topic because I'd love to hear more perspectives.

We've never shared grades or teacher feedback on report grades with our now 3rd grader and 1st grader. I'm not even sure if our kids know report cards or standardized scores exist.

It wasn't a conscious decision to not share, but when we discussed it, we realized we have the same perspective. Our 3rd graders is in AAP and always receives max scores. We want to encourage the process of trying hard and learning for the sake of learning, rather than focusing on the final grade. We don't think it would benefit her much to know she gets all 4s (and a couple of scattered 3s) because we still don't think she works especially hard and I don't want to give her incentive to coast. She also has a bit of anxiety and we don't her worrying about grades and report cards. We do discuss specific assignments as they come in, but don't want to focus much on grades.

Our 1st grader is not as academically advanced but we think it's our responsibility (not his) to figure out how to supplement his learnings and discuss ways for improvement with teacher. We aren't convinced that discussion of grades would be a motivating factor, nor do we think he lacks motivation.

Basically exactly the same family dynamic and choice for our family. I just never thought about sharing report cards with our kids — which is kind of weird because I remember it being a big deal to me as a kid, but now that they’re online vs coming home in backpacks, it’s easy to check and not talk about it with the kids. We do have conversations around parent teacher time- like- what do you think Mrs X will tell us? What should we tell her? What do you think you need to work on? What are you particularly liking at school? Etc

[Anonymous]

When I was a kid, parents shared the lower elementary very short report card with me. It had maybe 6-7 rows with Math, History, Behavior, and whatever else. Ratings were only Outstanding, Acceptable, and Needs improvement. No substantive comments were in the report.

[Anonymous]

We didn't share them in kindergarten but my 2nd grader absolutely knows when they are coming home and wants to know what is on them. We share and discuss the results as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm really surprised that so many people hide all or most of the report card and comments from their kid, but I guess I shouldn't be. Why wouldn't you share the teacher's assessment of your child's classroom behaviors and academic achievement? In fact, a lot of the report cards I've seen include some narrative addressed directly to the student.

I remember the teacher handing them to us kids and it was on us to give it to our parents! I can't imagine not seeing my own report card.

Yeah, my kids bring them home and absolutely look at them. The only thing I don't allow is for them to look at each other's.