Report Cards and End of Year Testing

We’re looking into having my son tested to see how he learns so that his teachers can help him more easily next year.   When I talked on the phone to one of the testing locations the lady I spoke with said she would need multiple things, all of which we can do easily, with one exception: report cards.   

Montessori schools don’t give report cards.   There are progress reports we get three times each year which are an in-depth description of where the child is in each area of their work, but it doesn’t list things at all in the way a traditional report card does.  Montessori philosophy is that each child learns at a different pace across the curriculum, which doesn’t lend well to grading-type report cards.   She said that was fine, that she could work with what we have.   

My daughter does get report cards and as of her last one, she’s exceeding in math and meeting all expectations in every other area.   There is also end of year testing done as well, even in kindergarten.  We asked her about the testing but she either didn’t want to talk about it or didn’t see it as anything other than another day at school. 

Her teacher did tell me today that she passed everything.   She had to read braille sentences and answer the questions by typing the answers in braille.   There are levels of the test, with the further along you can go, the higher your test result.   She’s at a mid-first grade level at the end of her kindergarten year, which is an accomplishment considering she couldn’t even read braille letters at the beginning of the school year.   

The Big Boy Update:  My daughter told me this evening, “Greyson can eat a thousand school busses a day.   Or at least that’s what he told me.”

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter was working on a book for her father for father’s day tomorrow.   She was at her brailler, typing away, when she asked, “how do you spell ‘illustrated’?”  She was writing who the illustrator was for her book.