TOS Crew Blog Cruise: Tracking Progress

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A child in a ‘traditional’ school setting has several times each year when their progress is recorded and then shared with the parents. I remember looking forward to report cards (maybe because I was a ‘good’ student) during my formative years. When the boys were attending parochial school, I looked forward to seeing their progress reports (mid-term) and report cards. While I saw work coming home, it was nice to see just how they were doing based on the standards the school was using.

Well, I looked forward to those moments until P took a nose dive in 3rd grade. Mid year, they changed HOW the child was being ‘evaluated’ from a reassuring format (outstanding, good, satisfactory or needs work) to the traditional letter grade format. Talk about disheartening for a child who previously saw most subjects with a good or satisfactory rating to all of a sudden be getting C’s, D’s and F’s. And, this mama didn’t take it too kindly either.

When we decided that we were going to homeschool the boys, I didn’t give a lot of consideration to alternative methods of evaluation. Ohio did not require me to turn in grades. Rather, we had a sampling of the boys’ work (a portfolio) reviewed by a certified teacher. In Maryland, we went through the local school district which needed to do a portfolio review twice a year. For some subjects (e.g. art and PE), I did not have marked grades. But for others, I did grade the work with an assigned number and letter grade on it.

How do I track what the boys have done and what grades were assigned? Homeschool Tracker Plus! I used the free version during our first year. But, after hearing about the lesson plan capability for the Plus version, I opted to spend the money. So far, I find it a great program for how I want to track things for our family. Although, I do have a backlog of work to input for the past few months.

While I personally LOVE Homeschool Tracker Plus, there are some friends that do not like it as much. There are so many features available in the Plus version of the program that it can overwhelm you. And, depending on how you want to track progress, the free version may suit you just fine.

Now that we are part of a charter school here in Alaska, I HAVE to track the older boys with the letter system. D gets to have the feel good system in place, though. I am so grateful to already have a system in place to help me pull together grades to submit.

We also need to submit samples of their work for each quarter. A system I had just started to use this year will help with this. All loose papers get filed into a divided folder for each boy. That way, I can quickly pull out a few examples of each subject and drop them off with their contact teacher. At the end of the year, we could quickly put together a more permanent portfolio as a sort of year book for each child.

Inside that ‘year book’, I would love to include a reading log. There are so many notebooking pages available online that allow a student to maintain a basic reading log. Homeschool Tracker Plus has this feature, including a handy ISBN look up feature. Plus, The Old Schoolhouse’s Schoolhouse Planner has a boatload of great forms to keep you organized.

Unfortunately, I’ve been a bit ‘busy’ with things e.g. a new baby and cross country move. So, many of the books read by the boys (esp. P) have gone unrecorded. Knowing this, I can see how useful a printed reading journal/log could be for the boys. I think the Schoolhouse Planner has just what I need for that!