Littles at home, a 20-40+ hour work week to maintain, relationships to nurture, and all the things!

If you’re reading this, chances are these are just a few of the items on your unwritten to do list.

Here are some reasons why knowing how your child is doing academically can be REALLY difficult to figure out.

-A SECOND LANGUAGE: The education world is has its own language, including acronyms galore (ELAC, PTA, IEP, SBAC, ELL, RFEP, FEP, to name few). If you’ve ever found yourself at the IEP table, you’ve undoubtedly never felt more like a fish out of water.

-INFORMATION OVERLOAD: When you get information regarding your child’s academic progress, it’s often simply too much. A folder full of graded papers on a Friday night, a report card that has SOOO much data your head starts spinning or a parent conference where three months of information is fit into a 20 minute meeting.

-INTIMIDATION: I said it. It’s true. Parents are beyond intimidated by the school system. We don’t want to be “THAT parent”. We want to respect the time of our teachers and school leaders. etc. etc. etc. Guess what?? The flip side is true too. Teachers are also intimidated by parents. In a world where teachers spend all their time with students, they get very little interaction with parents (especially after COVID), and guess what?? When we do hear from parents, it’s often when there is a problem. Not a big problem, but a problem they have been sitting with for too long.

-BAGGAGE: Each of us parents play a key role in our child’s education. We bring to this experience a lens that is greatly impacted by our educational experience. Did we enjoy being in school? Did our teachers like us, respect us? Did you receive special education services? Did receiving extra help make you feel embarrassed or ashamed? Another way of saying all of this is that us parents often get in the way of knowing how our students are doing. Saying things like “I’m not a math person either” or “I wasn’t a reader,” simply don’t help our children thrive.

So here’s where we get to the fun stuff. I am going to give you three ways to find the ANSWER to how your child is doing. NOTE: These strategies apply to 2nd/3rd grade and older.

THREE ways to KNOW how your child is doing academically.

FLUENCY: (for grades 2nd and up)

Can your child read with the correct pacing such that they are easily understanding what they are reading. When our children read too slowly, they are spending too much energy on reading the words that they will not be able to comprehend or retain the content.

How do I know if my child can read fluently? You can find a passage here at the appropriate grade level. Time your child reading for one minute and add up how many words were read (correctly).

A less formal way to check is to have your child read out loud to you a book that is at his/her grade level. If s/he is easy to listen to, then there is a REALLY good chance that your child is reading fluently… or click here for some sample passages to give this a try.

GRADE LEVEL EQUIVALENT: (for grades 2nd and up)

Chances are your school provides a grade equivalent. In reading, the grade equivalency test results often reflect their level of comprehension AND vocabulary skills. If you have a child in the middle of fifth grade, you hope that s/he is reading at the 5.5 grade level (that stands for 5th grade, 5th month).

If this is not available to you, a basic way to check for understanding is to have a child read something and then tell you all about what was read. Give this a try :)

Search up the reading level of books your child is reading here!

MATH: (for grades 3rd and up)

I have yet to meet a 3rd grader or older who thrives with his multiplication facts, and then flounders with other areas of elementary math. If you asked me to wave my magic wand and give ONE math skill to ALL kids, it would be for them to have their x0-x12 math facts memorized “to automaticity” as our state standards say.

How do you know where your child is at with multiplication? Click here. I find TimesTable.co to be the BEST for multiplication practice and assessment. It’s FREE. You can specify the fact(s) to work on AND the number of questions you’d like asked…oh, and you can time it to work on speed, or that “automaticity” if you like the big words.

So, if you find yourself wondering if your kid is ok, give one or all of these strategies a try and let me know how it goes in the comments.