If your child is having problems in school, you need a quick and easy way to stay in contact with his teacher on a daily basis. Teachers are just too busy to call or write you a personal note every time your child misbehaves or has difficulty with an assignment.
The Assignment Checksheet is a great tool for parents and teachers. It is simple to implement and allows you to address problems immediately. It is also a motivational tool for your child because she quickly learns that her teacher and her parents know just exactly what she is doing every day.
Many assignment checksheets are just too cumbersome to be useful. The key is to keep it simple. You can use these sample checksheets by saving them to your computer and printing them whenever you need them. Or, just use these as examples and create your own personalized checksheet in your word processor.
Step One - Using a Daily Checksheet
Identify a specific problem your child is having. When you meet with your child's teacher you can decide on one or two areas you want to track with the Daily Checksheet.
For example, if your child is having problems with paying attention to the teacher's instructions, the checksheet would simply indicate whether she paid attention well that day or not. The same thing goes for talking out in class, completing assignments, getting along with other students, whatever the identified problem area is.
The checksheet is most useful to you and your child when it is targeted to a specific behavior. If your child has multiple behavior problems it is best to focus on one specific behavior for 3 - 6 weeks, then reassess and change the checksheet as needed.
Example of a Daily Checksheet for paying attention to the teacher's instructions (Click on your browser's Back button to get back to this page)
See, it is really a very simple instrument for the teacher to complete and for the child to understand. For younger children you can add balloons, hearts, or other cute graphics from your word processing program to jazz it up. However, leave plenty of room for the teacher to write notes to you about specific incidents if she chooses.
Example of a Daily Checksheet for completing assignments
You may print the example pages directly to your printer if you like. Or, save it to your computer's hard drive then open it up in your word processor and customize it to fit your needs. You will need to print out a new checksheet each week.
Be sure to check the sheet first thing after school each day. Don't let it slide, or your child won't take it seriously and it will lose it's effectiveness. You can add rewards for a full week of good checks if you like. It is important to implement consequences for bad checks also.
