What Do Grades Mean?

I am looking forward to meeting with everyone during parent/teacher conferences, October 13 and 14. A few people have asked me about my grading practices. Fourth Grade is the first experience that the children have in receiving letter grades (A, B, C, and D), so I want to take some time to explain the system that I use to correct student work. Grades for a fourth grader are different than for students in high school and college. In high school and college grades can be a determining factor in whether a person graduates or goes to college. In 4th grade, however, I view grades as just a tool in communicating a child’s progress and achievement.

I put letter grades only on work that has been done independently, without adult assistance. Often when a skill is new or the class is having trouble with it, we use an assignment as a learning tool. We complete all or part of it together, discussing it and checking it as we go. The students may then be asked to complete the rest on their own. The work is important, because we learned and practiced a skill with it, but it does not necessarily reflect what the student can do on his or her own. In this case, I give credit for completing the job, but I don’t put a letter grade on it. Sometimes I stamp it “Completed together in class” or “Corrected together in class.”

Some of our work is completed in Math Journals, Word Study & Vocabulary Notebooks, Reading Journals, and Writing Notebooks. Some assignments are graded in these books. Others were done as a group, and are not graded. Sometimes a grade is given based on effort, for example a student will receive points because they were participating and trying.

Correcting and grading Math papers or other papers with a definite right or wrong answer is easy. My grading scale is as follows:
90 – 100% = A
80 – 89% = B
70 – 79% = C
69% and below = D

On most papers you will see the grade expressed as a fraction, with the number correct over the number of problems. If I have not taken the time to write a letter grade on the paper and you would like to know what it is, use a calculator to figure it out by dividing the number of correct answers by the total number of problems. This will give you the percentage.

Correcting and grading writing and reading assignments can be difficult, because it is not possible to base the grade just on right or wrong answers. It involves a lot of teacher judgment and opinion. I do not want the children to become discouraged about their writing, so often I choose one or two skills to stress on an assignment. Writing projects are often graded with a rubric. I discuss this with the class when I give the assignment. Sometimes the kids grade themselves with rubrics.

When calculating grades for the report card, I weight tests more heavily than daily work or homework. This is because tests are completed independently and after a unit has been fully taught. Special projects that are completed over several days receive more weight than a single daily assignment. I hope some of this information will be helpful and will give you a clearer idea of the way that I mark papers and calculate grades.

Much of our learning comes from the varied classroom activities that we do each day, including work that is done on line. Written work is just one part of our learning. Instead of being concerned about one test score, we want to look at the overall progress. This year, we have moved from quarterly grades, to trimesters. Report cards will be issued three times over the year.