Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Pre-school 1st report card - Has the teacher even MET DS???

The first trimester is over and DS5.3's Kindergarten teacher has been slowly uploading the grades / assessments on the website and looking at the scores, I wonder if she's ever even met DS? Not sure if all Kinder kids are graded on the 1-4 standards scale? But that's what we're getting with 1 Below Basic, 2 being Basic, 3 being Proficient, 4 Exceeds ... and while he's doing OK, I don't see a lot of his "grades" corresponding to reality? He's "proficient" in pretty much everything with few exceptions but this is a kid who's doing math 2 levels above ... I have only seen him make mistake on a class assignment ONCE (when he said he was too bored and was just guessing answers) ... if what he's doing at home isn't "exceeds" category than I can't imagine what is? Or is the school only grading up to Proficient and does not even use exceeds? One of his Social Studies grades is "basic" ... kid that can have an adult conversation with anyone about pretty much anything? It's not that I think my kid is a genius ... The younger one might be ... this one is more on the very bright / gifted trajectory. But objectively (and I can be pretty objective even about my own kid), if I was teaching a kid like him, I'm pretty sure the grades would be higher! He's getting quite a few lower grades for "self control" and some other related categories, and I know that's where he has problems ... too impulsive, energetic, talkative (to him everything is a two way conversation) but it makes me wonder if the behavior is what's making his grades lower? Any Kindergarten parent out there who has experience with this? ... overall it's just one more reason why I think I'm right wanting to pull him out and homeschool after Thanksgiving. But I just wonder if this is normal? My expectations were more along the lines of all 4s in Math and Science, 4s and 3s in Social Studies, 3s in reading and 2s in writing (where he really suffers). I haven't seen any grades from Language arts yet so I wonder how on the spot or off I'll be in that area.

oh, he did get one 4 ... from a different teacher ... in MUSIC class! lol

At our kindergarten they do 1-3, and they told us in advance to expect 2s if kids are doing what everything they should be doing, and 3s are only given for consistently extraordinary work. (Consistency being important)

Is that on an actual 1-3 scale or is it 1-4 scale and they simply don't award the 4s?

I just looked up more info on the grading scale that our school is using and 4 / Exceeds is defined as "Applies knowledge independently while demonstrating a thorough understanding of skills and concepts beyond what was explicitly taught."

I'm pretty sure that if not for more than this would definitely apply in Math for him ... I've even sent some work he does at home to his teacher so she'd have a better understanding of where he's at. Science should be the same thing for him. We have parent teacher conferences next week so I know I'll find out more but I've sort of given up at this point. It's all about behavior and not about anything else ... and least from what I've seen.

We had the same last year when DS was in 1st grade. Using your 1-4 scale DS got 2s and 3s in language arts and reading. He got 3s in everything else - the occasional 4 in science. When I asked the teacher about it, usually the issue was that he wouldn't do or didn't understand some intermediate step that the teacher was asking for. Example: he wouldn't write out what "3+4=7" looked like. He would just write the answer and not "explain his work" or write out 3 balloons + 4 balloons = 7 balloons. So, in the teacher's mind, he couldn't be gifted or advanced, because he wouldn't do all her little steps.

DH has told me all along our public school journey, that report cards don't matter. I didn't understand him until last year. If your child is HG+, the report cards really don't matter because they don't reflect your child with any accuracy (IF your child is in a regular gen ed public school).

DS has been subject accelerated 3 years in math. He will skip a full grade next year - even with very average looking report cards.

This year, I have told the school that we don't need any report cards - that they shouldn't waste a moment on them for us. We let them know that they should call us if there is some kind of problem, but we don't need a report card. We'll see what actually happens in a few weeks.

They'll probably give him 3's next trimester and then 4's. That way they can pat themselves on the back because he has made so much progress.

My son's school has a huge packet with lists of skills. The kid either gets a "X" for mastery, a "/" for having had an introduction to the skill or it is blank.

So for counting it might have

1-10 X
1-20 X
1-100 X
1-1000 X

The lists cover everything from standard academic skills to consistently washing hands and using a tissue when needed.

Even though your school doesn't use that system, you might ask the teacher to explain what skills she wants him to have and how he has or has not demonstrated mastery.

somewhereonearth - thank you! Makes me feel better that I'm not just imagining things! Not sure why I was expecting miracles. I had two amazing teachers 1st/2nd and 3rd/4th grade who saw me for who I was right from the start so I wrongly assumed DS's teacher would see HIM too. Most people usually pick up on how different he is very quick (his therapists realized he was probably gifted before I even gave it one thought). But he does have problems with paying attention because it's all moving too slow, he's now started complaining about Math being "always oh so easy!!!" so it's probably affecting his performance that he's being graded on.

I just had an AHA moment! I remember reading the schools last "report card" where the school hasn't been making consistent progress the last two years, mainly in kids with special needs who have IEPs ... I also recall the special ed lady once saying something like "he'll make us look great on standardized testing in a few years!" ... so jumping from 2s & 3s to 4s at the end will make them look great!

This is exactly what our elementary school did - when I saw my ds' first "report" with 3s on it and questioned it, I was informed that "4" correlated to having mastered grade-level curriculum requirements, so "of course" none of the students would have a "4" mid-year.... (no matter what they actually knew or were capable of). The kids who had variations from 3s were only the kids who were technically falling "behind" and hadn't mastered basic skills. The teacher simply said that the 3 reflected where the class was at in being *introduced* to the curriculum. So if the class was doing single-digit addition and hadn't seen single-digit subtraction yet, but that would happen before the end of the year, the class couldn't be *at* level 4 yet because they hadn't learned single-digit subtraction yet. Even if any one individual child had been single-digit subtracting since they were two

On the flip side, this type of reporting also had no correlation with the type of challenging work ds was offered in the classroom - way back in K when he was receiving "3s" his teacher was giving him independently challenging math work and reading/spelling word lists that she had to create just for him because she'd "never had a child that advanced before". But, um, yeah, he was only at "level 3" until it was the "appropriate" time for him to be an official "level 4".

I agree with somewhere that report cards from elementary school were basically meaningless to us as parents. They are much more relevant now that our kids are in middle school and receiving actual grades on the work they turn in and tests they take and those grades in turn are put together into an actual grade on a report card. Oddly enough, my kids are also much more motivated by the grades-for-actual-work system... go figure!

polarbear