Report card comments: How to make them easier to write.

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So what can teachers do to make the task easier, while maintaining their professionalism?

Long story short - there are two things to bear in mind:say what you mean and mean what you say.

Teachers need to explain what students have achieved.To explain achievement teachers need to:

• state the level of attainment the student has reached - this could be grades or levels which might be explained by letters, numbers or whatever system a school uses to describe student performance;
• explain what the attainment means: care is needed here because you have to make clear to parents and students the attainment measured against the learning criteria and also in comparison to other norms - eg other pupils, other schools etc.

But achievement is more than attainment - achievement means the degree to which a student has engaged with the learning experience of the year , semester etc.

This means teachers have to use comments rather than numbers or symbols in order to give a full picture of the progress a student has made.

Report card comments will obviously include appropriate information about performance in specific subject areas and focus on strengths and areas for development [weaknesses],but are also likely to touch on contexts that cut across the whole curriculum, such as personal qualities shown, perseverance, sociablility, cooperation, and classroom behavior.

An increasingly popular area for report card comments is to look to the future:it is becoming the norm for teachers to be required to set targets for further student progress and to offer specific advice on how the student can reach those targets.

What are the problems with report card comments?

The first problem is one of perception, particularly on the part of teachers. For many it seems to be little more than a paper exercise. It's just too bureaucratic - writing report card comments becomes an end in itself - the schedule requires report cards to go to parents, teachers write often quite bland and trite comments that don't offend parents but don't really say what they want to either. Parents read the comments and may follow up the odd individual comment before the report card is put away in the drawer, never to be looked at again.

Perhaps that's a rather too cynical view, but there's no denying that the process of writing report card comments is fraught with problems such as:

• they are time consuming - especially when you have to write reports every semester or you teach more than one class;staggering the schedule so teachers don't have to write a huge number of reports at the same time can help, but not all schools do this
• there is the risk of a lack of consistency among teachers - different teachers may interpret things differently or write comments that don't share a common purpose or style, that could lead to confusion for students and parents
• very often school administrators set unrealistic deadlines - leading to teachers creating 'production line' report card comments, simply to get them done in time to meet the deadline
• some parents don't perceive the value of the report card - some may not even understand the comments and therefore do not see this a meaningful two-way communication between home and school.

Things that might help

• plan ahead - start collecting evidence early: you could keep a journal that highlights not just learning activities but also the way students responded to those learning activities - for example, you might have noticed that particular students learn more effectively when they can access learning through kinesthetic activities, and that their attainment is better when they can learn in these more active ways;
• make sure all interested parties know exactly what to expect - it might be a good idea to provide a user's guide so that parents, students and teachers all understand how the process works;

What about using banks of statements for writing report card comments?

There are both good and bad points about banks of statements:

Good points:

• they can be easily replicated and can be easily adapted in specific details to show individual students' traits, known in the trade as 'tweaking' the comments;
• they ensure a certain degree of consistency among teachers in same school or district;
• they are time efficient - widespread computer technology in school makes it easy to produce report card comments in bulk quickly and easliy;

Bad points

• many teachers feel that statement banks stifle individuality - some teachers don't want to be restricted in what they say, they want to write individual comments for each student, although many teachers find it easy to adapt ready made coments and like gaving templates to work from - for some it's better than writing every comment from scratch.

So what's the way forward?

We should see report cards become a process rather than an event. Think of commenting on student progress as an on-going dialogue with students, parents and fellow teachers, that aims to keep all interested parties informed.

That's not to say we should write report card comments more often, rather that we should build up a more comprehensive 'big picture' about a student's progress, so that when the time comes to write the report card we have all the informaton we need to create a meaningful report that genuinely helps students and parents to see progress, or lack of it.

On this last point, the more information we have as teachers, and the more accurate the informaton is,the earlier we can intervene to nip problems in the bud.

By using classroom management software we can give parents access to student profiles 24 hours a day. And it's not just information about behavior that can be available but also about grades, positive contributions to lessons and to wider school life and so on.

Many schools now have learning platforms or VLEs [Virtual Learning Platforms], to which students and parents can have access. As well as offering direct teaching and learning material for home access,VLEs can outline the topics a student is studying, timelines for assessment, mark schemes, guidance notes for parents, advice on how to help students study, memorize, prepare for exams etc.

Some schools are now offering parents the chance to access their own child's scores and grades privately, via an individual login to the VLE.

All of this information can be harvested to make the report card a much more powerful and meaningful document.

A model framework for report card comments

The 'Kiss / Kick / Kiss' model is a frequently used and powerful framework.

Kiss

• Start by saying something positive - relate it to the learning activities in which the student has engaged during the time span relevant to the report card comment period;
• Be as specific as you can about the progress the student has made and the knowledge, skills, aptitudes, principles, values the student has demonstrated; you might want to give at least one concrete example of the demonstrated behavior - for example:' ... has cooperated well with other students in group learning tasks.'

Kick

• Mention at least one area that needs further development;you might not want to use the word 'weakness' - some school report card comment systems prohibit the explicit use of the word 'weakness'; here again try to be as specific as you can and provide an example of what the student needs to do to make improvements in this area;
• Remember to focus on the behavior required to improve, not on the character of the student: this sometimes causes problems for teachers because they really want to say that a student is not working hard enough but they worry that such a comment will be seen as too negative; there are ways around this - for example a comment such as: '.... will be able to move up to reading level ...xyz... by committing 15 minutes every day to the support exercises provided and completing the self assessment materials each week...'

Kiss

• Finish on a positive note by outlining more observed behavior that has contributed to the student's progress: here again, use verbs that make it clear that students have not only cooperated in the learning process but have fully engaged with the learning activities and the school ethos and expectations. If they haven't cooperated or engaged fully, you could say so in the 'kick' section;
• make sure you find something positive to say in this final section - even the most uncooperative student will have some saving graces - you just have to catch them doing something well

Important note

Don't patronise and don't tell untruths - parents will feel short-changed if they sense you're disrespecting them by fudging issues about their children.

Parents can be great allies and you need them on your side when you write report card comments;if you tell them the truth and can cite objective evidence to back it up they will respect you for your professional judgement and will probably be willing to lend their hand in trying to turn things around with the student.

Remember,if you would like to see some ready made report card comments you can visit TIMESAVERSfor TEACHERS.com which specializes in report card comments, and other teacher aids such as printable, often-used classroom forms, spelling activities, practical teacher tools, worksheets and downloadable teaching materials designed to save teachers valuable time.

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