Report card blog.

Lilly update. Lilly's second-semester report card came home today. I don't remember if I received an actual report card when I was in kindergarten, but somehow I think that was a formality Favor's Kindergarten in Denton, Texas, did without in those long-lost days in 1966 and '67. But that was then.

"The Purpose of the Progress Report Card is to [says the report card about itself, using its capitalizations]: Provide a framework for promoting student progress and growth based on the Illinois Learning Standards..." That is, we're already thinking about standardized test scores.

The report card isn't actually a card, not in the style of a folded piece of paper with letters inked in columns by the teacher. It's the printout from a computer; but I have no doubt that Ms. Sullivan, Lilly's teacher, put the letters in. Except that they aren't letter grades. They're "terms." NE = Not Evident. B = Beginning. D = Developing. CD = Consistently Demonstrates.

I won't list all the "skill descriptors," as the card says, though they are categorized as Literacy Concepts (that's two Rs); Math Concepts (one more R); Work Habits and Social Development; and Fine Motor Development. I also won't gloat over the little one's successes at this point -- "she's on the road to a PhD in Lunar Biology, I tell you... and a Nobel Prize in Vexillology!" -- but it does seem that things are coming along, mostly Ds and CDs. The only flat-out NE in the second semester is "Rhymes words," which mystifies me, since I've heard her rhyming at home with my own ears.