Report Card Comment Selection Tips for Beginners

Do you feel overwhelmed and unsure of how to write report cards? Whether you’re a new teacher or have been teaching for years, it can be challenging to think of unique, effective, and clear report card comments to write for your students to help them improve and feel confident in their accomplishments. Instead of making things up or rushing with quick, vague comments, here are some tips to help you write quality report card remarks in Canada and the U.S.

Get the Support You Need

You can do some research online to help you get some inspiration for what to write in your report card comments or you can ask a teacher friend for advice. If you’re looking for something more concrete to help you develop a model that works every time, our comment ideas for report cards can be used each year as a template.

Gain Clarity from Your Principal and Look at “Model” Report Cards

Another tip to help you write effective report card comments is to chat with your principal to find out the school’s grading philosophy. Observe other models that teachers use to write their report cards and see what you can use for your own model.

Get Organized

From the beginning of the semester, you should establish a good filing routine to keep your students’ projects and work accessible and organized. Find out what tools you can use to make good evaluations, whether it be portfolios, checklists, inventories, student self-assessments, observations, or test results. Your filing system can be organized by student and then by subject, so when it comes to report card season you can spread out each students’ work and assess how well they have done throughout the term.

Choose Your Comments Carefully

It is important as a teacher to be balanced in your marking. There’s a difference between being constructive with comments for improvement and downright critical. Be sensitive as you give feedback to your students. Go beyond a letter grade of B or C+, but add comments that express the areas they improved on and did well in, and where they can do better. You can also offer suggestions as to how they can reach their goals by listing several meaningful “next steps.”

Be Proactive

Experienced teachers know that they should not wait until it’s report card time to deliver seriously disappointing news to students. Instead, they should contact the student’s parents when they see a decline in performance and give parents feedback on how they can help their child get their grades up before evaluation. Communication with parents before and after the report cards are sent out is very important to keeping them in the loop as to what is going on in the classroom and how their child is doing.

How TIMESAVERS for TEACHERS Can Help You

If you’re having a hard time finding the right advice or guidance to write report cards, look no further than TIMESAVERS for TEACHERS. We have a variety of essential time-saving tools for teachers to help you be more effective during report card season. These tools include The Teacher’s Binder, Teacher Report Card Comments Collection, Substitute Teacher Instructions Kit, and Classroom Awards.

TIMESAVERS for TEACHERS provides downloadable and essential classroom time management tools and teacher resources. Looking for more ways to be more productive? Visit our web site to download these amazing time-saving tools!

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