Progress Reports

The progress report card will go home very shortly.  Receiving a report card can be quite anxiety inducing for both children and their parents.  How can we work with our children to have them understand that the any report card is a measure of what they are able to do at a specific moment in time and not a permanent evaluation of their capabilities?  How can we, as parents, help our children to understand that it is OK not to be perfect in every aspect of the report card?  The work of Carol Dweck on Mindset (see previous blog post on mindset) teaches us a lot about how to approach many things, including receiving a grade on a report card.  The fixed mindset will react to the report card in a way that will lay blame for why a specific grade has been achieved.  The fixed mindset will seek to fault the teacher or some other external factor for the grade that has been given.  The growth mindset will understand that the student has not YET learned to do a specific thing or must continue to work on practicing skills in order to improve.

It is SO VERY important for our children to understand that learning is a process and a continuum.  When a teacher indicates, either through a grade or a comment, that a child needs to work on specific aspects of the curriculum or learning skills, it is because they are continuing to learn. 

Here are a few tips on using the report card as a catalyst to further learning.

1.  Focus on the comments that are given as they will usually provide next steps and clarify why a child has received a given grade or evaluation.
2.  Ask your child to explain what the next steps mean and how these next steps will help them to continue learning.
3.  Praise your child's efforts, particularly if there have been improvements since the previous report card. 
4.  Avoid praising intelligence.  Continually telling a child that he/she is smart invites a fixed mindset and often makes a child averse to taking risks and learning for fear of not being seen as smart.
5.  Remember that your child's teacher assesses your child against benchmark standards based on professional judgement and based on the learning of other children of the same age level in the same grade.  If your child receives a C or a N(needs improvement) or an S(satisfactory), it means that there is need for growth and learning.  This is where you should begin the learning conversation with your child....making it about how to continue to learn and grow as opposed to being focused on the letter grade or letter comment.