How do I know if my child is behind or on level in school?
A student is on grade level when they can consistently demonstrate mastery of the standards outlined for their grade in reading, writing, and mathematics. Report card grades are often inflated due to district or school grading policies, teacher subjectivity, and a focus on growth not mastery. Given this, they are not accurate indicators of a student’s grade level. The most reliable way to assess mastery of grade level standards in reading, writing, and math, is a standards aligned adaptive assessment.
How do parents check their child’s academic level?
Relying on grades, assignment completion, percent correct, or even teacher graded assignments is not the best practice for determining academic level: for parents or for teachers. For a reliable snapshot of student grade level mastery, teachers and parents rely on the skill by skill analysis that occurs in standards aligned assessments that typically occurs three times a year in reading/writing and math. Each of these assessments has a parent report that schools provide to their families.
What does “below grade level” actually mean?
A student who is below grade level has not yet mastered the skills outlined in the standards expected for their grade. However, being below grade level often means that a student is simply missing a few foundational skills. When those learning gaps are identified and addressed with targeted practice, students can catch up and continue to progress in their learning.
How do I know which standards my child has mastered?
It can be difficult for a parent to know which standards are a strength for their student. Report cards, individual assignments, and tests are not aligned to single standards, rather they are aligned to several, so student performance in report cards, assignments, and tests are not an indicator of mastery of a grade level standard. This can only come from a standard aligned assessment. In standardized assessments that schools often have students complete a few times a year to measure growth, information regarding strength standards is often available in the teacher’s dashboard but not in the report sent to families after assessment. A parent would likely have to request that information from the teacher.
How do parents help their child without being teachers?
Parents are in a unique position to help their children academically one on one. Even without any formal education training, parents can make a huge difference. When a parent knows exactly what the learning gap is, knows exactly what exercises to do with their student to target that gap, and knows exactly how to help their student think through the learning if they struggle, they have all the tools necessary, no different than a teacher. Helping students master learning standards is achievable by addressing one skill gap at a time through consistent, targeted practice each day or every other day.
How long does it take to see academic improvement?
Learning takes time. With targeted practice and support, especially in a one on one environment, little by little, every student can learn what they need to learn to be on grade level. However, if half or even a full school year passes and, despite consistent targeted practice and your best efforts, your child’s progress remains concerningly slow, the necessary next step is to schedule a conversation with their teacher.
What grade level should my child be reading at?
It is very important that a student reads at or above their current grade level for all grades K-12, and they have consistently demonstrated mastery in all of the reading standards for their grade. Critically, research shows that if a student is not reading on grade level by the end of the 4th grade, it is likely that the student will never catch up from this learning deficit. From the 4th to the 5th grade there is a pivotal change from ‘learning to read’ to ‘reading to learn.’ Consequently, a learning deficit in reading at the end of 4th grade will increasingly impact all academic content areas.
What is the difference between reading level and grade level?
Reading level indicates the complexity of text—such as sentence structure and vocabulary—that a student can read and understand. Grade level reflects the deeper understanding and critical thinking skills that the text demands. For example, the widely popular book Of Mice and Men, with its simple sentence structure and approachable vocabulary, is widely accepted to be at a 6th or 7th grade reading level. However, due to its rich complexity, it is a better match for academic skills of the 9th or 10th grade.
How do I help my child improve reading comprehension at home?
Reading comprehension is all about understanding a text, not just finishing it. Asking students questions about main characters, events, ideas, lessons, themes, conflicts, and details will help lead students to a more deep and complex understanding of a text that they have read. Questions about vocabulary, summarizing, and making connections to real life also strengthen comprehension. Texts should be at your student’s independent reading level, not too easy or too difficult.
What should parents practice with struggling readers?
It is very important that parents practice reading with their students if they fall behind in reading. Research shows that students who are behind in reading by the end of 4th grade are at high risk for never overcoming that deficit of grade level reading skills. While general reading together time is better than nothing, more targeted practice will lead to a better outcome. Students might benefit from practice in decoding, fluency (reading (decoding) accurately), vocabulary development, or comprehension strategies like summarizing and asking questions.
How can I tell if my child is on grade level in math?
The most reliable way to determine whether a student is on grade level in math is through a standards‑aligned adaptive assessment. The results show whether a student is performing below, on, or above grade level based on mastered skills. While report card grades are often assumed to reflect grade‑level proficiency, this is frequently inaccurate. Grades can be influenced by work completion, teacher subjectivity, instructional accommodations, district grading policies, and student growth rather than true mastery of grade‑level standards.
Why is math so hard for my child now?
When a student is struggling with a math concept, it is likely not that concept that is the problem. The problem is likely an unmastered foundational skill for that concept. Math concepts build from one to the next, so any foundational skill that is not mastered will make the next math concept much harder to comprehend. For example, a student who has not mastered addition will struggle with the concept of multiplication. A student who has not mastered division will struggle with fractions. Identifying the foundational skill that needs to be revisited and strengthened with targeted practice is the way to get a student back on track with grade level standards.
What math skills should my child have by grade___?
There are two critical transition points in math standards that serve as success predictors for student learning. The first is 3rd grade. By the end of 3rd grade, students who have not mastered multiplication facts, division facts, multi-step problem solving, and fractions (fractions mastered by the end of 5th grade) will unlikely be successful in algebra. In the 7th and 8th grade, students who have not mastered fractions, ratios and proportions, and basic operation fluency will unlikely be successful in algebra. Algebra success is highly correlated with high school graduation and college readiness.
How do I help my child with math without confusing them?
Focusing on one targeted skill at a time can help keep stress low for students and parents when practicing math. It is important that the targeted skill be the ‘right’ one, meaning, that it is important to identify the standard where a student’s learning is incomplete and target that standard, not something more challenging or unrelated. For example, if a student is struggling with fractions in grade 3, drilling fractions would be a difficult way to progress and would leave gaps in knowledge unfilled, but revisiting the student’s grasp of division concepts would likely make learning fractions easier.
What does it mean when a child is “behind” in math?
When a child is behind in math, it means they have not yet demonstrated consistent mastery of the math standards for their current grade level. This does not mean that the student is failing, it means that there are earlier learning gaps preventing the student from being successful with the present grade level learning. Math builds, so missing earlier skills makes new skills increasingly harder to understand. Once gaps are identified, targeted and consistent practice can quickly strengthen those missing skills and help a student catch up to grade level learning expectations.
What is an adaptive assessment, why is it better?
An adaptive assessment adjusts question difficulty in real time based on responses. The assessment moves up or down in difficulty, enabling it to zero in on a student’s instructional level. Each question reveals mastery or need for growth. To prevent frustration or fixation on getting all answers correct, it can be important for students to know this assessment design in advance, as the test is designed for the student to eventually get wrong answers.
How long should an academic assessment take?
Academic assessments are too long when they cause assessment fatigue. Disengagement during assessments leads to inaccurate scores caused by fatigue, not lack of skill. Child development research indicates that attention span increases 2-3 minutes per year of age for focused tasks like assessments. So, for a 9 or 10 year old 4th grade student, we can expect a focused attention span from 18 to 30 minutes.
What are Common Core State Standards (CCSS)?
Rolled out in 2010, the CCSS are a set of learning goals that outline what students should know and be able to do in reading, writing, and math. They were created to provide consistent academic expectations across states and to prepare students for college and careers. CCSS focuses on building strong foundational skills, critical thinking, and real‑world application rather than memorization. Schools use these standards to guide instruction, assessments, and curriculum development across grade levels.
(Texas, Virginia, Alaska, and Nebraska never adopted the CCSS. Indiana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Arizona, and Florida have created their own state-branded standards that resemble the CCSS.)