Standards-Based Report Cards: Family-Friendly Language and Templates

A dad opens his daughter's report card and reads: "RI.6.8: Trace and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, distinguishing claims that are supported by reasons and evidence from claims that are not." Next to it is a 2.

He has two questions. What does that mean? And is a 2 bad?

If your school uses standards-based grading, this is the moment that decides whether families trust the whole system. Standards-based report cards can tell families far more than a letter grade ever could. But only if families can read them.

This guide shows you how to write report cards that work for the people who actually read them at the kitchen table.

What does the research say about report cards and families?

Two findings are worth knowing before you design anything.

Families rely on report cards, and they read them generously. A 2023 survey of 1,971 parents by Gallup and Learning Heroes found that almost nine in ten parents believe their child is at or above grade level: 88% in reading and 89% in math. Around the same time, national test results showed fewer than a third of eighth graders were proficient in reading or math. The same survey found parents lean on report card grades as their main source of information about how their child is doing. In other words, a report card that sends a fuzzy message gets read as good news.

Once families understand standards-based report cards, they prefer them. In a 2014 study published in Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability, Gerry Swan, Thomas Guskey and Lee Ann Jung surveyed 115 parents in a district that had switched to a standards-based report card. In the authors' words, parents "overwhelmingly preferred the standards-based form." Teachers in nearby districts considering the switch were positive too, but less so than the parents who had actually received the new cards.

So the problem isn't the idea. It's the communication. Guskey made this point years earlier in Phi Delta Kappan. He found parents confused by labels like "Emerging" and "Exceeds Standard," and quoted one parent who asked, "If you mean 'Beginning,' why not just say 'Beginning'?" His conclusion was that grading and reporting are "less exercises in quantifying achievement than they are challenges in effective communication."

What does a family-friendly standards-based report card need?

Seven things. You don't need fancy design. You need each of these to be clear.

1. A short list of standards per subject. Families can't take in 25 lines of maths. Group related standards into four to eight big skills per subject, and report on those. Keep the full list for your own records.
2. Each standard in plain language. One skill per line, in words a parent would use. More on this below.
3. The scale explained on the card itself. Don't make families hunt for a key on the school website. Put it at the top of the page. And say clearly which level is the goal.
4. Learning kept separate from work habits. Guskey calls these product (what the student has learned), process (habits like effort, homework and participation) and progress (how much they've grown). He argues that clear communication "requires that they be reported separately." A student who knows the material but forgets homework, and a student who works hard but hasn't mastered it yet, need very different conversations.
5. A link to real work. Guskey recommends giving examples based on student work, so families can see what a level looks like. Even one sample per subject helps.
6. One short comment per subject. What's going well, what's next, and one way a family can help. Three sentences is plenty.
7. The same words every year. If kindergarten uses "Beginning" and fourth grade uses "1" and middle school uses "Approaching," families have to learn a new system every time. Guskey warns against this kind of "mishmash." Pick one set of labels for the whole school or district.

How do you rewrite standards in plain language?

Official standards are written for teachers and test makers. That's fine for planning. It's a problem on a report card.

Here's a simple method that works for almost any standard:

• Start with "I can." It turns a rule into a skill a child can show.
• Keep one skill per line. If the standard has "and" in the middle, it might be two lines.
• Swap the jargon for everyday words. "Trace and evaluate" becomes "find and decide." "Rational numbers" becomes "fractions and decimals."
• Keep it short. Aim for 15 words or fewer.
• Keep the code, but make it small. Teachers need "RI.6.8." Families don't need it in bold.
• Test it. Read it to someone who isn't a teacher. If they can't tell you what their child is supposed to do, rewrite it.

Here's what that looks like with four real standards:

Notice what stayed the same: the actual skill. Nothing was made easier. It's just written so that a parent, and the student, can understand it.

Copy these, change the details for your school, and use them. Swap the labels for whatever standards-based grading scale your district uses; the structure stays the same.

Template 1: The scale key

Put this at the top of every report card. It answers "is a 2 bad?" before anyone has to ask.

Three details make this key work. It says the levels aren't percentages, because families will assume they are. It marks the goal clearly, so nobody thinks a 3 is a C. And it describes each level by what the student can do, not by how they compare to classmates. Guskey's research is clear that comparative language confuses families.

If you'd like to know more about choosing a mastery grading scale, see our guide to standards-based grading scales.

Template 2: A report card section

Here's one subject for a sample sixth grader, Maya. Learning, habits and comments each get their own space.

Notice the work habits use "how often" words, not levels. Guskey points out that frequency labels make sense for habits and behavior, but don't work for showing what a student has learned. Keeping them separate means a missed homework assignment never drags down Maya's reading level.

Template 3: Comment frames

Good report card comments do three things in three sentences: name a real strength, name the next step, and give families one way to help. Here are frames for each level, the kind of feedback for students from teachers that families can actually use.

Two rules. Every comment names something the student can do, even at the Beginning level. And every comment is about the skill, not the child's personality. "Sam is working on finding the main idea" is helpful. "Sam needs to try harder" isn't.

Template 4: A letter to families

Send this before the first standards-based report card goes home. Families who know what's coming read the card very differently.

How do you use the report card at conferences?

A standards-based report card is a great starting point for a parent-teacher conference, because it already tells you what to talk about. A few habits make the conversation go well:

• Bring the work. For one or two skills, bring a piece of the student's work. Saying "here's what a 3 looks like, and here's where Maya is" does more than any explanation of the scale.
• Start with what the student can do. Every child has at least one skill at or near the goal. Start there.
• Pick one goal together. Don't try to fix five things. Agree on one skill to focus on before the next report card, and one thing the family can do at home.
• Ask what they see at home. Families notice things you don't. A child who "doesn't participate" in class might talk non-stop about the same topic at dinner.
• Explain where the level comes from. If a family asks why their child is at a 2, you should be able to say which pieces of work it's based on, and how they were combined. If your school uses a calculation method, like a recent-work average, say so in plain words. Our guide on how to calculate mastery explains the common methods.

What about families who speak other languages?

This isn't just good practice. In the U.S. it's a legal duty. Guidance from the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice says schools must share key information with parents who have limited English, including report cards and parent-teacher conferences, in a language they understand. It also says schools must use appropriate, competent translators and interpreters, and may not rely on students or siblings to interpret.

A few things make this easier:

• Write in plain English first. Short sentences and everyday words translate far more accurately than education jargon. Every tip in this post helps here too.
• Translate the scale key and the letter to families once, using your district's translation service, and reuse them all year.
• Book interpreters for conferences early. Don't leave it to the week of.
• Use visuals. A simple ladder graphic for the scale, or a photo of a work sample, needs no translation at all.

For ideas on giving students feedback in their home language day to day, see our guide to giving feedback to English language learners.

Seven mistakes to avoid

1. Too many standards. Twenty-five lines per subject overwhelms families. Report on four to eight big skills.
2. Copy-pasted official standards. If a parent can't understand the line, the level next to it means nothing.
3. No scale key. Families will turn every level into a letter grade on their own, and usually the wrong one.
4. Mixing work habits into learning. Late homework shouldn't lower a reading level. Report habits separately.
5. Comparing students to each other. Describe what each student can do, not where they rank in the class.
6. Changing labels between grades. Use the same words from kindergarten to eighth grade, or as close as you can get.
7. Surprising families. If the first time a family hears their child is struggling is on the report card, something went wrong earlier. Share progress during the term, and send the letter to families before the first card goes home.

Making family reports in GradingPal

The hardest part of any standards-based report card isn't the template. It's keeping track of the evidence behind every level, for every student, all term. If you grade in GradingPal, the standards mastery gradebook does that part as you go, and it can turn it into a report for each family.

Here's how it works:

• The levels come from work you've already graded. When you approve a grade on an essay, worksheet, quiz, lab report or scanned handwritten assignment that's tagged to a standard, it counts as evidence for that standard. You choose the scale and how the level is worked out. Until there's enough work on a standard, it shows "insufficient evidence" instead of guessing.
• You can export a report for each student. It comes as a print-ready PDF, one page per student, in two versions: one for you, with levels, percentages and evidence counts, and one written for families.
• The family version is written in plain language. It's headed "How Maya is doing on learning standards." For each standard it shows the current level, how many pieces of graded work it's based on, and a list of her recent work, so families can see where the level comes from. It ends by inviting families to ask the teacher about any standard or work sample.
• Your judgment shows. If you've set a student's level yourself, for example after reassessing them one-on-one, the report says it was "set by the teacher."
• You choose the time period. Export for all time, the last 30 or 90 days, or your own dates. One thing to know: when you choose a time period, levels you set by hand are left out, because they describe where the student is now, not during that window.

A family report is a strong companion to your school's official report card, especially for conferences. It isn't a replacement for it. It covers learning standards only, not work habits, and your district's report card system stays the official record.

The bottom line

A standards-based report card can tell a family more than a letter grade ever could: what their child can do, what's next, and how to help. But only if they can read it.

So write each standard as an "I can" sentence. Put the scale key on the page and say which level is the goal. Keep habits separate from learning. Show real work. And send families a short letter before the first card goes home.

If you'd like the evidence behind every level tracked for you as you grade, try GradingPal free and turn on the standards mastery gradebook for one class.