It’s that time of year again! Progress Reports have been or will be send out. As parents, get prepared to see how your child has been doing since the school year started.  The real question is, do we wait for the final report cards to come out at the end of the year, to get more of an accurate result? Or do we, take these progress reports just as importantly, and implement a change right away? It is hard to determine this, because as parents we become oblivious to the fact, that it is not necessary to make a change, because there is still a lot of time for improvement, and it will just occur naturally throughout the school year.

I think that progress reports, is valuable because it can be seen either as a warning sign; “time to get some additional academic help” or simply a goal setter; “There is always room for improvement”.  We as parents, should appreciate the fact that progress reports are given to us, so at the end of the school year it doesn’t become a big shock to how our child did. Also, progress reports help parents keep in touch with the academic process in the school system. Final report cards should be perceived as a goal check-list to see whether or not the child was able to obtain those goals. Often, what happens is that parents wait for the final report cards to see if the child is at grade level or behind and whether to get a child a tutor or not.

As a parent, would you want to avoid this? And become a goal setter right from the get go?