Strategies for Bringing Up Grades

Here are a few strategies to help you work with your students to bring up their grades for classes or subjects with which they are struggling.

Use a visual prompt as an antecedent warning and make a contract with your student. Use the student’s special interests as a motivator.

• If you are able to get a facsimile report card a few weeks before progress reports are sent home, this can help you identify areas in which the student needs to improve.
• After reviewing the areas of difficulty, create a concrete, structured plan to help the student achieve success in these areas.
• Make an outline of tasks or assignments that need to be completed in order to bring the grade up. Include deadlines for completion of each task. You can include a visual calendar with deadlines written on the corresponding dates.

This is a strategy used by teachers of students on an academic track who are failing or falling behind. It gives the student an antecedent visual prompt and then offers concrete and motivating ways to help the student get back on track.

• Child's Age: 11-13, 14-17
• Planning Effort: Low
• Difficulty Level: Easy

None

1. An Advance Warning System Strategy is used by the teacher: A few weeks before progress reports are sent home, the student is given a facsimile report card.

2. If the student would like to improve the grade in the weeks remaining, alternatives or ways to bring the grade up to the desired level are arrived at by teacher and the student. They must be concrete and specific with timelines and frequent progress checks by teacher and parents.

3. List the specifics in the form of a contract and have the student sign it.

4. Extra Credit Opportunities could also be included. These could be opportunities that draw on the student’s strengths or particular area of interest allowing them to turn in bonus work with those topics as a focus. This might also be used as a substitution for other work.