On Wednesday, January 29, 2020, Fountas and Pinnell hosted a webinar on Tips for Reporting Progress and Grading within Fountas & Pinnell Classroom™ (FPC). This in-depth discussion focused on tips for obtaining information for reporting progress to families and administrators on student literacy achievement. Read on for a recap of the webinar.
Before you begin to think about what should go on report cards, it’s important to first think about what you value. What you value is what you ultimately communicate to families and caregivers in regards to performance, change over time, and their child’s reading and writing life in the classroom.
Think about what you value in children’s literacy. Ideally, what would you see and hear in a high-quality literacy classroom during a morning of literacy learning? How does these values reveal what matters most to you as a school community?
We asked webinar attendees to share what they value. Some examples are:
When you take observational notes on the students in your class throughout the day and across the course of the year, you can identify individual strengths and needs as well as document change in students’ learning over time.
How can we take those observations and capture them and attach a grade (when required) or a lens with which we know whether the children are on target?
Below are some examples of ways to keep track of observations:
When it comes to constructing a report card, ideally the administrative and faculty team would undergo the process together to assure the report to families is consistent with the school's values and beliefs about literacy and the goals of the school's literacy program.
But the goal of the report card is also to communicate information to families, so it’s important that it includes language that can be understood by non-educators.
Here are some ways to talk to parents about children’s progress:
Throughout the grading process, always be looking back at what you value. Keep those values in mind when articulating what to look at to determine the quality of work that will inform how grades are obtained and progress reported to parents.
~ The Fountas & Pinnell Literacy™ Team