Questions to Ask About Reports You Receive

Read a new report twice: first for its structure and its final recommendations, then slowly, listing every term you do not understand and every statement you want explained. Then ask the author, or the professional who sent it, what the key sections mean in plain words, what the report is based on, and what happens next. You are entitled to understand documents about your child; asking is normal. What the report concludes is the author's professional view; this page does not interpret reports, and the answers to your questions belong to the professionals involved with your child. File the report and your questions together using the notebook record, and prepare for any discussion meeting with the review questions.

Pass one is a map: headings, length, who wrote it, when, and the closing section where actions usually live. Many parents read a report from the first line at midnight and remember only the most alarming sentence; the map pass prevents that by showing you the shape first. Pass two is the working read, pen in hand. Underline terms for your jargon list. Mark statements about settings, dates and observations, because those are the checkable parts. Mark recommendations separately, with who is named to do each one. At the end, write your question page: meaning questions, basis questions and next-step questions, in that order. If the report will be discussed at a meeting, send the meaning questions ahead if you can; professionals would rather explain a term by email than watch you struggle with it in a room full of people.

Choose from these according to what your two passes turned up:

• Could you explain this section or term in plain words?
• What is this part based on: observation, records, our conversation, or school information?
• Over what dates was the information gathered?
• Which recommendations are for school, which for home, and which for the service?
• What happens next as a result of this report, and who receives a copy?
• If we think a factual detail is wrong, how do we ask for it to be checked?
• When will this report be reviewed or superseded?

Ask factual-correction questions separately from meaning questions; they travel by different routes, and mixing them slows both down.

As an illustration only: a parent reads an eight-page report and lists six unfamiliar terms in the notebook margin. A short email asks about the six terms and one date that looks wrong. The reply explains the terms in a paragraph each, confirms the date was a typing slip, and issues a corrected page. The parent files the reply with the report, so the pair now read clearly together. The report is invented; the pattern is not. Reports are written quickly by busy people using the shorthand of their field, and a calm, specific question list is the standard way families everywhere turn them into documents the whole team can actually use.

Some reports are hard reading, because they describe difficulties in formal language that strips out everything warm. Two protections help. First, timing: do not do the close read late at night or just before the school run; give the document a decent half hour in daylight, when you can act on questions straight away. Second, company: read it with a partner, family member or friend if you can, because a second reader spots the recommendations section you skimmed past and hears tone more accurately than a worried first reader. If the report contains something you believe is factually wrong, use the route in the disagreement guide: dated facts, in writing, unhurried. And remember the report is one document in a longer story your notebook holds, not the whole story of your child.

Skim for shape, read with a pen, list the jargon, ask the questions. A report you have questioned properly becomes a working tool for the next meeting instead of a weight in a drawer. The meaning of the document belongs to its author to explain; making sure the explanation reaches you, in plain words, is a job you are fully entitled to do.