How Does Your Teacher Grade? High or Low?

It's also based on work she completes in class, participation, factors you never see.
Did you have a parent teacher conference yet? The teacher should have discussed her marks with you at that time & what kind of rubric she uses to determine how she grades.
If not just shoot her an email & ask for clarification.
Though honestly 3's are very normal in the beginning of the year, especially as you get into the older grades. A kid may breeze through 1st and 2nd grade and then find 3rd grade work a lot more challenging for example.

Second grade - 1- 4 system. 2 - showing progress towards expectations, 3 - meeting age appropriate expectations most of the time, 4 - consistently/always meeting expectations.

I am not sure how this really matters - the point is that your child is learning how to learn and showing progress in meeting these goals. The goal isn't to get all 4s. They don't count how many 4s she gets when they decide whether to recommend her for gifted testing and whether to recommend her for more advanced classes when she gets to middle school. When she applies to Harvard - no one will ever ask her whether she got 3s or 4s in elementary school. I think it is sad that kids start to focus on their report cards rather than what they are learning. A lot of that is our fault - teachers and parents.

My oldest is in his first year getting letter grades. In K thru 3rd we have 1, 2, 3 and 3+. I felt like with that grading system the teachers wanted to leave room for improvement. My oldest got all 3's until his final report card and then got all 3+'s on the final report card. My middle son in K got mostly 2's and then on the final report and got all 3's except 1 grade was a 2.

I really am not a fan of this type of grading system but as long as you feel your child is getting the education she needs I don't really think it matters in the long run.

My children's school uses 'N" - needs improvement, "S" satisfactory, and "E" Excellent. They also grade overall performance as BL Below Level, OL - On Level and AL Above level. I believe that the teachers have to give a written justification for any "N" or "E". I have also heard teachers that readily admit that they rarely will give an E because of this. I think that the parameters of the grading encourage the teachers to grade to the "S". Lazy teachers (and yes, there ARE some" will try to give an S to avoid the extra work. It really drives me crazy...

K through second uses 1, 2, 3 where 1 exceeds expectations, 2 meets expectations, and 3 needs improvement. I've noticed that there is a correlation between this system and percentages. It seems easier for my kids to understand at that level. (I guess I should add that the expectations are the grade level requirements.)

I don't think it would hurt to ask nicely why she has so many threes when the work she brings home is mostly fours.

P=Proficient Demonstrates a solid and in-depth understanding of outcomes consistently; applies understanding in various situations A=Acquired Demonstrates a basic understanding of outcomes D=Developing Demonstrates an emerging understanding of outcomes N=Not Observable Does not yet demonstrate outcomes

the problem with teachers being liberal with '4's or 'E's or 'A+'s is that parents' expectations adjust to feel that the superlative is the expected. i suspect that's what's happening here. your current teacher probably feels as i do, that the superlative should be reserved for rare outstanding occasions, not the everyday high standards that a clearly excellent student like your daughter produces.
the 'consistently' is the sticking point, isn't it?
1234 is such an un-nuanced system. pity.
khairete
S.

I take it the 3 is "meets standards", which it sounds like your daughter is doing. If she does all her homework and gets 4s on her tests, then she is meeting standards. If she is going above and beyond (as in doing extra work or doing extra problems), then I would expect she'd get a 4.

Hi, Sally:

Go talk the your child's teacher.

Good luck.
D.

My son is in 1st grade -no idea if/when our school starts using letter grades. Our school using 1, 2, 3 and x (if they haven't gotten to that topic yet).

The teachers do assessments during the last week of the quarter to see if the child has mastered the material. So even though the kids do worksheets throughout the quarter and they worksheets are graded, I'm not sure the points are counted in the same way they are in junior high or high school. It seems that the only really "grade" he gets is that number that tells us whether or not he "gets" the concept.

Then again, he is only in first grade.

Ha! I just received my daughter's 1st trimester report card and thought she must guess at some grades. We are on a 1,2,3 system and my daughter received mostly 3's, but some 2's, which immediately means you are borderline.

She gave her a 3 in spelling. She gets all of them correct on the spelling test, but misses a few here and there while writing sentences. Isn't it the test that counts when it comes to report cards???

It also depends on what the grades are based on.
For example: are the grades based on Summative Assessments or, Formative assessments, or, both?

Depending on the school's system or the Dept. of Education requirements, scores and grades will be based on these aspects.

Some schools only use Summative Assessments for grading.
Some use both Formative and, Summative Assessments.

I work at a school.
Elementary and Middle School and High Schools, may vary in how grades are derived.

So, you need to see HOW, and what, the school uses, for deriving grades.

It is not just an average.

And whatever papers you see at home that comes home from school, is typically not ALL every single piece of work, that is done or completed or not completed.

Then, for things like P.E. or art class etc., you will not see papers coming home about it unless they have class assignments on paper, too, for it. Not all teachers send home, school or classwork back home.

What grade is your daughter in?
Is this public or private school?

As the grade levels go higher, the work is more complex and the requirements are not the same for each grade level, etc.
So it cannot necessarily be compared... to last year.
And the strictness of a Teacher or not, does not reflect grading.
A Teacher, must, as a Teacher, grade according to the Dept. of Education's guidelines and requirements.
It is not just arbitrary.
Unless a Teacher is just so capricious.

On report cards it's a 1-4 grade, on daily papers it's XX/XX correct. Everything seems to be kosher with both of my kids' teachers too. I like my son's teacher a lot better than my daughter's. There is just MORE communication with his teacher.

Frequently means 3. Always equals 4.

our teachers seem to grade hard...

my son is in first.. he is reading at second grade level.. and he still got several P (progressing ) on his reading. I think the teacher is using the childs ability as a way to grade... like my kid could be doing better based on his own ability.. other than that I really don't understand why he didn't get all S (satisfactory) in reading ..