How Homeschoolers Keep Track of Grades
Finding a Grading System that Works for Your Family
Jan 8, 2009
While you need not be a bookkeeper to keep track of your child's homeschooling grades, you do need a defined plan. There are many ways to accomplish this. Here are some commonly known ways that homeschoolers keep track of grades.
State Requirements Prevail
Some states will require that you show the progress made by the end of the year. This can be a difficult thing to figure out on how to get started. One of the easiest ways to do this is to use a spreadsheet, such as Excel. It is easily set up for each child, and you can add whatever categories you feel are needed, usually just listing the subjects that each child is taking in a given year. A spreadsheet is also a great way to show progress to the state, if needed. You'll be able to print out all of the recorded grades.
Homeschool Grading Charts
Grading charts are available in many homeschooling books and on various websites. Some of the more common charts are similar to those used in public school where the "A, B, C, D, F" system is used. Others will use E (excellent), S (superior), M (median), I (inferior), F (failure). It all depends upon your personal preference.
Most of the time, it is easier to set a specific scale, such as 90-100% for an A, 80-89% for a B, and so on, to be able to set an intended goal. When you are grading a worksheet, you can determine the grade by dividing the number of problem that are correct by the total number of problems on the worksheet.
Example: 27 problems correct divided by 30 problems total equals 90%.
Rubrics Grading System
Grading a written project, such as an essay, can be more difficult. You won’t have a simple equation for what is a right and wrong answer. Explain exactly what you expect the project to include and then decide how close to the expectations the finished product is. The Rubrics grading system is a way to break down each element of the project and assign points to each element. You can find rubrics samples on most homeschool websites. This can make grading that essay much easier for you, and a little more fair to the child as well.
Common Methods for Grading Based on Testing Results
If you are grading an entire year of work, you may find yourself somewhat overwhelmed. If you recorded each of the worksheet, test, quiz, and essay results, then you can add all of them together and divide by the number of assignments. This can give you an overall grade for the year in each subject area.
You may find your child doesn't do so well on a quiz, but does extremely well when taking an actual test. If you make each test worth twice what a quiz is, you may have a better overall picture of how much your child has learned. This is called weighing the test. It makes the test more important than a quiz score.
You can also make a final exam worth a certain percentage of the final grade. This is a great way to see exactly how much your child has retained throughout the school year.
No Grading System in Place
While keeping track of grades is important, not all parents choose to use a system at all. Many parents will mark a child as pass or fail, depending upon how well he did with a project or a subject. This is completely up to an individual family's decision, and perfectly legal depending on your state's requirements.
There are even some homeschooling families that do not keep track of grades at all. If all that is required at the end of the year is a final result on a standardized test to be submitted to the Education Board, then keeping track of grades throughout the year is not something some families put a lot of effort into at all.
Keeping track of grades in a homeschool setting varies immensely based on family beliefs and core values. There is no right or wrong way to track a child's progress, as long as the laws for the state are being met. The grading system just needs to be clear, so a child does not become confused about what is expected of him.
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