6 Dos and Don’ts To Make Report Cards Easy

It’s report card time. Report cards are a great way to show student growth BUT you can spend a lot of time doing report cards. And if you don’t handle report cards just right, your best intentions can backfire and make your teacher life pretty miserable.

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Here are the 6 Report Card Dos & Don’ts. Keep reading to get more info on each.

• Don’t rely completely on a number in a grade book.

Do have a student folder with work samples to support percentage/grades/skills.

• Don’t have data and students work in several places.

Do organized data in one spot for easy and quick reference.

• Don’t write a new report card comment for each student.

Do use a report card template and word/comment bank to structure and quickly fill in student data and observations.

• Don’t reveal a problem area in a report card without talking with parents about the skill/behavior deficit first.

Do communicate with parents before report cards come out about any problems.

• Don’t use negative language in report card comments to describe a child or their skill/behavior.

Do use positive language to describe skills/behaviors deficit.

• Don’t tell parents about a problem without explaining how you are helping the child remediate the issue.

Do give specifics on exactly how the child is not on level and how you are working with the child to meet our exceed specific skills and/or behaviors. Plus, give strategies and materials parents can use to help the child.