Self-Improvement

• A report card will show a student and her parents what she excels at and where improvement is needed. This allows for the student, as well as her parents, to focus more attention on improving performance in the weaker subjects, broadening the scope of her academic strengths.
  
  

Positive Reinforcement

• Report cards can also be helpful in the realm of positive reinforcement. The report card itself, if the grades are good, can be considered a type of positive reinforcement, essentially telling the child that he did well. Moreover, parents will also often reward their children in response to good grades on a report card.
  
  

Discipline

• Mirroring their usefulness in positive reinforcement, report cards can also be helpful in discipline. A report card with bad grades can be considered a form of discipline in itself, as very few people take pride in failure. Moreover, parents will often take appropriate disciplinary action in response to bad grades, until those grades are changed. As a net effect, it can encourage the child to work harder and get better grades.
  
  

Red Flag

• As an indicator of academic performance, the report card can also serve as a sort of warning system for learning disabilities. If a student, while noticeably trying as hard as she can, cannot maintain good grades, the bad grades may invoke special attention from the teacher, the parents or others. That attention may result in the discovery of disabilities, if they are present, in which discovery is the first step to treatment and management.