Teacher’s manual · Chapter 7 of 12
Reading a student’s results
Teachers · about 6 minutes
This is the chapter that turns the program into teaching. Everything else is setup.
Where to look
- The class table, at the top of a selected class in your classroom. One row per child. Use it to scan.
- The student page, reached by clicking a child's name in that table. One child in full. Use it when you want to know why.
The class table
| Column | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Passed | How many targets they have completed |
| Completion | How far through the program they are, as a percentage |
| Level | Which level they are working in now |
| Last practiced | The date they last wrote anything, or Not started |
Read Last practiced first. A child at 4% who practiced yesterday and a child at 4% who has not practiced since September are not the same child and do not need the same conversation.
The student page
At the top are four numbers averaged across every attempt that child has made.
| Number | What it measures |
|---|---|
| Path accuracy | Whether the stroke followed the true path, in the right direction and order |
| Target coverage | Whether the whole letter was written, or only part of it |
| Size and placement | Whether it sits on the line, at the right height and width |
| Tries recorded | How much practice is behind those numbers |
Tries recorded is the one people skip. Averages over four attempts mean very little. Averages over two hundred mean a great deal.
What each pattern tells you to teach
This is the part worth learning properly, because the same low score has three different lessons behind it.
Accuracy is high, placement is low
The child knows the shape. They are writing it in the wrong place, or the wrong size. The letters are floating above the line, sitting below it, or drifting larger and larger across the row.
Teach: ruling and sizing. Go back to letter heights. Which letters stop at the dotted line, which reach the top, which drop below. Have them write four letters slowly and check each against the line before writing the next.
The student page tells you when it sees this, in words:
Placement is high, accuracy is low
The opposite, and more serious. The child is writing neatly on the line but forming the letter wrongly: starting in the wrong place, going the wrong direction round an oval, or lifting the pen where cursive does not lift.
Teach: formation. Send them back to ▶ Watch Demo on the slow setting, and watch it with them. Say the stroke aloud while it draws. Then have them trace before they write. A wrongly formed letter that is written neatly will get worse with practice, not better, because they are drilling the error.
The student page says:
Coverage is low, everything else is fine
They are stopping part way through. Usually this is a child who lifts the stylus at the point where the letter changes direction and never comes back, or a child racing.
Teach: finishing the stroke. One letter, slowly, all the way through, before they are allowed to do a second.
Everything is low
Look at the device before you look at the child. A finger on a tablet, or a mouse, will produce exactly this. See When something goes wrong.
Needs more practice
A list of the targets below 70, worst first. This is your small-group list. If six children share three letters in that list, that is tomorrow's mini-lesson and you did not have to work it out yourself.
Took the most tries
The five targets that child attempted most. A target that took a child eighteen tries and eventually passed is more interesting than one that failed, because it tells you where the effort went.
Every try
The full table, grouped by target: every score in order, the average, and whether it passed.
Read the sequence, not just the average. 42 · 51 · 63 · 70 · 78 is a child learning in front of you. 71 · 44 · 80 · 39 · 76 is a child whose attention is going in and out, which is a completely different conversation. The averages are close to identical.
Exporting
Export CSV on the student page gives you every single attempt with all three measures, one row per try. Print / PDF gives you the page as it appears, which is the version to take into a conference.
On the class table in the school view, Export CSV gives you one row per child instead.
What the numbers do not tell you
The program measures how a letter was formed. It does not measure whether a child understood what they wrote, whether they were trying, or whether they were having a bad day. It is evidence for your judgment, not a replacement for it.
Skhillz Script also never stores an image of a child's handwriting. Only the measurements come off the device. If a parent asks to see their child's actual writing, the answer is that we do not keep it, and the reason is in Privacy and student records.
Not covered here? Write to support@skhillzacademy.org, or use the support page, which tells you what to include so nobody has to write twice.