QOTW: Grades
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QOTW: Grades
| Mon, 02-19-2007 - 9:44am |
Board QUESTION OF THE WEEK:
What kinds of grades does your 10-14 year old get?
| Mon, 02-19-2007 - 9:44am |
Board QUESTION OF THE WEEK:
What kinds of grades does your 10-14 year old get?
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My girls all do very well in school. I do beleive that they have to be taught to care about their grades. I have always taught my girls that school is their job and they are expected to do the best that they can, if a C was their best I would be fine with that if they were trying. They have to do all of their homework every evening no matter what other activities they have planned. All projects and long term assignments must be started as soon as they find out about them. If they have a weekend or more than one weekend before it is due it must be done over that first weekend. If they miss school one of their sisters brings home their work and it is done before they go back to school.
Normally if a parent does not encourage a child and help them when they begin to struggle the child will know that the parent doesn't care and will not put forth their best effort. My oldest daughter came to live with us when she was 8 and this was the case before coming to our house. When we started to encourage good work habits and goals she started to excel and has done better than we could have ever imagined she was capable of doing.
Tonya
What kinds of grades does your 10-14 year old get?
Connor is an A/B student.
Do you push them academically or do you just let them do their own thing?
I let him do is own thing. His teachers say he could be a straight A student if he applied himself, but I don't see the point in pushing him towards that end. He's got a great balance between extra curriculars, clubs, activities and good grades right now, so I don't see the need to upset the balance he's found for himself.
What kinds of study habits & skills have you instilled in your child to help them succeed?
Homework is a priority and all school work must be completed before moving onto other things. His work area is also one that I insist he keep organized.
Do you believe that kids need to be pushed to acheive good greats, or do you beleive they either have it or they don't?
I believe that children need to be encouraged to do their best. Ultimately the drive to do well needs to be their own.
stacy
What kinds of grades does your 10-14 year old get?
Emily(7th) has always gotten all A's & B's.
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The whole grade question is an interesting one for us.
Ds (11) is learning disabled, has fine motor problems/writing disability, sensory integration issues, and is classified as very highly gifted.
In the classes where we know his LD is a problem (ie-Math) he's on a modified program and doesn't recieve letter grades. I personally don't care if he ever learns algebra, but I really want him to be able to function, so I am more worried about life skill math then anything there.
He doesn't take French (I live in Canada), but will be able to pick up a language if he wants to go to university when he's in high school or if he goes to college first.
As far as his other courses, I do expect that he do well in Science, because that's his biggest strength. He's always pulled off As without even trying, so there's no question of ability there. The only thing that really holds him back is his fine motor problems and writing disability. The most frustrating thing is that he know he can do well orally, but if he has to write then it really chains him down. We insist that he has a scribe for things and that way his true ability shines through and he gets As and Bs. Without the scribe though, he'd be failing. In Language Arts he does better then I thought he would, pulling off B's and he is a very good reader.
So in light of all that, considering that grades in our case aren't a reflection of what he actually knows, I take them all with a grain of salt. What we emphasize more then anything is that he TRY to do the best he can with what he's got. However, I do have high expectations that the school will adapt the program so he can show what he knows. Without that support, my ds is quite literally unable to cope. He quite literally can't copy from the board or write pages of work, take notes, and write tests without a scribe.
Eventually I'm hoping that ds will be able to use technology independently to do the writing required. For now, I scribe everything for him because there is such a huge gap between what he knows and what he can write.
My daughter gets mostly A's, and an occasional B. She really struggles to get a B in math, and sometimes she doesn't make it. Last semester she got a B in math, but I doubt she will make it this trimester. I won't be disappointed in her because she went to extra help every week, and goes to tutoring.
This is the first year I have really concerned myself with grades. Mostly because they didn't count toward anything. We don't level at all until high school. I was far more concerned about whether or not she was learning.
I do push my daughter to do well in school. I check the web site to make sure I know what is due that week, and will look over assignments. I will also monitor her progress on long term assignments. I have been known to make her re-do work that I thought was below par.
Do I think my involvement has helped? Yes. She has learned to organize her homework better. I created a graphic organizer to organize what she needs to do that day. It works better than her planner because the planner does not include information on her long term projects, studying, violin, and independent reading. She has also learned to better organize her writing assignments by creating an outline. I keep the house quite during homework time, and the TV does not go on until everyone is done with their homework. I have also made her skip activities when she needed extra time for homework.
Thankfully, this year she has had a lot less homework than last year. This year she is getting a mere 2-2.5 hours instead of 4+ hours. Study halls have been effectively banned in my state because they are not "time on learning".
What kinds of grades does your 10-14 year old get?
What kinds of grades does your 10-14 year old get?
What kinds of grades does your 10-14 year old get?
At 13 Tegan's motivation comes from within. She wants to do well, she doesn't really need to study because she pays close attention in class and she retains everything she hears.
Kelsey just turned 11 and it has only been this year that she seems to be working extra hard. She has to work a little harder then her sister but things still come pretty easy for her as well.
When the girls were little we read to them everynight and they also read to us. As a matter of fact up until June i still made Kelsey read to me nightly. I am honest with the girls regarding any assignments they ask me to critque. Kelsey had a story she had to write a few weeks back and what she wrote was alright but nothing special. I told her she was capable of more and that she had to do it over again. She complained but 1/2 hour later i was reading probably one of the best stories she has ever written. Her story was the only thing her teacher hung up in the classroom that week. Kelsey still needs to be pushed a little to reach her full potential but she is getting there. I will let her know if what she is reading is not appropriate for her grade (5th). I realize it is fun to sometimes read something silly or something that is an easy read and that is fine but i expect her to do a book report on a book that is at least a grade level.
I think the drive to succeed does have to come from within but i think you can bring that out in someone as well. When i was a kid i never believed that i had the brainpower to seek a higher education. It seemed out of my grasp so that isn't something i went for (much to my regret). When i look back on it i now think i could have easily gone on to university but nobody led me to think i was capable. I struggled with math and went to remedial for it but i did very well in everything else. I remember in eighth grade racing home and bursting into the house because i had gotten the highest mark in the eighth grade on an English exam. I was so proud of myself. When i told my mother she responded by asking if i was in a lower group then the rest of the kids. I was crushed and i remember thinking "OMG my mother thinks i am stupid. So i believe kids need to be brought up believing in themselves. Everyday i tell my girls how beautiful they are, how intelligent they are and how kind hearted they are.
In response to your last question "how did you help your child succeed?" I taught Tegan how to read when she was four so when she entered first grade she was reading at a fifth grade level. Kelsey was not interested in learning to read only in being read to and i was advised not to push her so i didn't. Well five weeks before first term report cards were to come out her teacher told me she would be getting a C in reading. Well i made Kelsey a word ring with around 100+ sight words. We did the ring twice daily and within three weeks she went from a C to an A. Kelsey and i also did a math ring in grade two so she could memorize her math families and in third grade we had a math ring so she could memorize her times tables. I thought i might have had to make one this year for division but it wasn't necesssary.
Well i have gone on way too long.
Kelly
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