No matter what type of schooling you went through as a child, you know what it’s like to have your efforts graded. You may feel really good about this, or really bad!
But how do homeschoolers receive grades when assignments can be so different than in traditional schooling? And do grades even matter? Let’s look at all the differing opinions about grades and ways to grade so you can make your mind up about what to do in your homeschool!
Step up to the 10,000-foot view for a moment.
What is the purpose of grades? With 30 students in a class, a school teacher would have a pretty hard time knowing exactly where each student’s progress was without formal grades, quizzes, and tests.
Teachers are accountable to parents and the school to provide quality instruction and grading is one way to determine if students are learning. Grading is objective (hopefully) and a tool to understanding progress.
Depending on your philosophy of homeschooling, grades, especially in early elementary, would not fit into the model.
Informal unschooling methods that value curiosity, relationships, and child-led learning, would typically rarely if ever issue grades. This would be like giving a grade to life lessons! Who has ever done that?!
On the other hand, some families have a very formal type of education and prep their children to be college-bound early on. They typically begin evaluating childrens’ work and issuing letter grades as early as elementary school.
If we are praying and following God’s lead for our children’s lives, then we are each only accountable to Him for the method we chose and if that is in alignment with His will for our lives.
Where do you fall in your method of homeschooling? Somewhere in between the models above? Maybe you have changed paradigms over the years. That’s OK! We are all on a journey and continually adapting to what our family needs.
Grading can be of value in all the methods above. It is of great value to learn how to be evaluated, what this feels like, and what the consequences are if any. Just like testing, it’s not always the results that we find value in but the process.
If you think it might be valuable for you or your children to be assessed, it isn’t just about a strict letter grade. There are many ways to do this if you are interested in working it into your homeschool in some fashion.
LETTER GRADES** RUBRICS** CHECKLISTS**
LETTER GRADES
The typical letter grading system we all grew up with is based on percentages.
This is the most unforgiving of the systems and is very objective.
Simply put, the number of correct answers is divided by the total number of problems.
17 answers correct
divided by
23 total questions
= .74
Move the decimal over 2 spaces = 74%
This is a C grade.
How do I know that?
Now we go to our scale (This can vary)
100-90 A
89-80 B
79-70 C
69-60 D
Below 59 F
Here’s a grading chart if you want to check it out on Amazon~
Is letter grading the right fit for you?
Is letter grading the right fit for you?
This doesn’t have to be all or nothing! Perhaps an occasional assignment for a letter grade could even be made fun! This could be helpful if you aren’t sure what material your child knows.
Having the experience of working for a grade, knowing an official assessment will be taken could be a growth experience for your student.
How old is your child? Letter grades aren’t really helpful or meaningful in early elementary grades the same way a smiley face or shiny foil star is!
Do you have a high schooler headed to college? Getting used to grades may be beneficial to some students.
Would letter grading cause undue stress on your child? The anxiety grading can cause may not be worth it for students who already struggle with these issues.
Does your state require grades? Check your state’s homeschool organization and get educated on the requirements to legally homeschool.
RUBRICS
This method of evaluation scores content in evaluation areas by numbers (1 poor – 5 excellent, for example) or with words (excellent, good, fair, or poor) by specific criteria to determine if the performance objective was achieved.
It can get pretty complicated, or you could create your own rubric for what you want your child to achieve.
Check out the example of a rubric for a popsicle stick house.
Rubrics can be developed for students to evaluate their work before submitting a final draft.
This helps develop skills of evaluation and editing and correcting work and the ability to think critically and determine if performance objectives were met. It involves the student in the evaluation process and can give them more buy-in to the process and make deeper more insightful learning a goal.
This may not be the method for all your homeschool subjects, and it just isn’t necessary.
Employ this for older students that want to master a subject, or for subjects/projects where there are a lot of moving pieces to evaluate and you want a really good idea of how much mastery they have in a subject.
Rubrics can be helpful for kids with special needs because you can evaluate progress without typical testing.
CHECKLIST
Checklist evaluation can be a really good way to see if the scope and sequence of your program are being achieved.
Scope (the topics covered) and sequence (the order they are covered) are usually available for your curriculum online or in the teacher’s manual.
Create a simple checklist with these topics and perhaps expand on more important or complex ones with a few subtopics in your checklist.
This is a simple way to evaluate progress, is stress-free for your child, and keeps you on track with your program. Notes can be made about the quality of the work or where help is needed next to each topic.
Whether you do no grades at all, use rubrics, checklists, or something else, involve your kids in the process so they won’t see it as scary or intimidating.
I always tell my kids the most important things are:
- They are making progress.
- They are trying their best.
- Mistakes mean they are stretching and growing and giving effort.
- Baby steps all add up to reaching a goal.
- We never stop learning, and cultivating a love of learning is more important than any grade or evaluation.
Grading, and school in general, used to have a big focus on memorization of facts and recall.
Now that we all have access to a computer 24/7 in our pocket and can look up absolutely anything at any time, a shift in focus is in order.
Cultivating a love of learning, as well as curiosity, is vital to growing lifelong learners.
Knowing general trends and patterns in history, for example, and understanding God’s big interconnected story, is more valuable than knowing the exact date King John signed the Magna Carta (1215).
Seriously…I had to look the date up just now and I’ve studied this with my kids several times!
Give some thought and prayer to how you want to evaluate your kiddos, if at all! You will have a great idea of how they are doing in their subjects, but sometimes you may want a little more.
It’s also OK for them to be evaluated and learn what that is about. There’s no one size fits all, and all choices, made with prayer, are valid.
Do you grade your kids? Leave a comment below!
[This article contains affiliate links to Amazon. If you purchase with a link I make a small commission. Any product I link to is one I have used or vouch for unless stated otherwise. ]