The Cheese brought home his first report card the other day.  I opened it with a smile.  We had visited with his teacher about his progress a few weeks back during parent/teacher conferences, so I knew that there wasn't anything to worry about. 

Not to be one of those bragging, talk-about-your-kids-like-they're-so-great kind of parents, but the Cheese is a good little kindergartner and the Golfer and I couldn't be more proud.  So far, he seems to be a quick learner and we know that it probably has something to do with the fact that he had the advantage of going to two full years of preschool.  He's been going to some form of school ever since he was 2-years-old, so I felt pretty comfortable opening his report card, figuring that what I was about to see would give me even more reason to be proud of him.

What I wasn't expecting was that I would have so much trouble understanding the darn thing.

For kindergarten, the students are not given "traditional" grades of A, B, C, D, and F.  Instead, their grades look something like this...

O-for Outstanding
G-for Good
S-for Satisfactory
N-for Needs Improvement

...which is easy enough to understand, especially considering that the grades are for 5-year-olds.  I can remember getting E's for Excellent, VG's for Very Good, and G's for Good when I was in school.  At least there was a VG in between the E and the G.  I should know.  I was always a VG kind of a student. 

There seems to be a big syntax gap between "outstanding" and "good."  The word "outstanding" is typically followed by an exclamation point, a word filled with praise and excitement.  The word "good" is just...good.  There's nothing wrong with being "good", but in my opinion, it's like the difference between the words "beautiful" and "cute."  Being called "cute" is a nice compliment, but it doesn't even compare to being called "beautiful." 

On top of the letter grades, there were also marks for Quality of Work.  These included the following categories: Demonstrates Strengths, Works with Grade-Level Standards, and Requires Additional Support.  In layman's terms that means: above average, average, and below average.  They just change the names to soften the blow for the parents. 

So there I was, looking at his report card filled with letters and check marks on a nicely organized computer print-out.  After spending ten minutes reading the Report Card Guide that actually accompanied the print-out, I was finally able to understand everything that I was looking at.  The best part was reading the teacher's comments at the bottom of the page.  More than the check marks or the letter grades, her comments really helped me to understand how my son is doing.

Apparently, my son can read 26 sight words, which totally impresses me considering I didn't start reading until the first grade.  I'll take credit for the fact that he is "neatly writing in his journal with confidence and excitement."  Thank you very much.  He can count to 100, but has trouble recognizing 70,78, and 13.  Go figure.  And he knows his phone number, but still needs help with memorizing his address.

In a nut shell, he is learning, and I think that is..."Outstanding!"

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