Being the parent of a school aged child is enough to send this perfectionist momma into a panic attack. The range of levels of the kids in Morgan's kindergarten class is quite vast. There are kids that are struggling with a word like "is" and others that can read and write at a first grade level. My daughter falls squarely in the middle right now. I'm kicking myself for not having worked with her on phonics and the elements of reading before starting Kindergarten. I wish I'd made a bigger stink about her preschool teacher last year, who did not work with the kids on these types of skills as much as I would have liked. I know that she'll be fine and I know that she's catching on quickly, but I can't help but want her to be at the head of the class. With the girl who can spell read and spell words like animal. I know she's smart. I know she has so much potential. If only....
But also, part of me is glad she's not at the head of the class. She can go through the process of improving herself, and she'll have something to strive towards. I just hope that she keeps her hunger for learning and her drive for getting ahead. Right now, she's been learning roughly 2-3 new words every day. She's already up to 17 words that she can read on sight. When she was first tested, she knew two - "a" and "I". We've been working with flash cards every night. She reads them to every living thing in our house. Twice. I know it's working because words that she used to struggle with, like "the", she's quick to call out now. We try to make it fun by making crazy sentences, having her "teach the dog to read" and basically making games out of it. She's still hungry. She's proud of herself for her progress, especially when she masters a word that she considers hard, like "look".
I'm also proud of her. I can't help but start to wonder how the rest of her academic life will go. Will she maintain the hunger? Will she lose her drive? Will she get to the head of her class, or will she always be struggling to get there? Will she have more of a literary mind like her mother, or will she be more of a math and science kid like her father? Will I have to nag her to do her homework, or will she happily get it done on her own?
Welcome to parenting a school-aged child, huh?
The good news is, that Morgan is teaching Bennett the stuff she's learning. He's becoming a pro in Zoo Phonics! This can only mean great things for his academic future, right? Welcome to parenting a second child, huh?
3 comments:
Being at the head of the class is really rough. In my kindergarten class I was the only one who could read. The teacher used to photocopy (well, back then it was mimeographed) worksheets with the teacher's answer key still attached. The day she found out I was reading them (they weren't in small print or upside down or anything), she snatched my paper away, held it up for the class to see, took a pair of scissors, cut off the answer key, and announced to everyone that all of my papers now would have to be specially prepared because I had been cheating.
I used to pray to be made stupider so kids would like me better. Considering I was raised without any religion whatsoever that says something. :)
I learned that if I was the first to turn in my papers, kids would hate me even more, with snide, disbelieving comments like, "You're done ALREADY?" So I used to hang on to my papers, quadruple-checking them, until someone else handed theirs in first. I did this from elementary school all the way through my senior year of high school, when I finally let my guard down during an AP English test, which I finished early and then took a nap waiting for the next section to begin, and got yelled at by a good friend for not even pretending to still be working when she was struggling to finish.
Being smart may be useful in the real world after graduation, but I'm still not sure it was worth the torture that came from kids and teachers during school.
I don't remember if I've seen you post about starfall.com. It's a nice website for kids like Morgan. Claire was using it the other day and it would show her a picture of a word that ended in "an" or "at" like cat, rat, hat, etc., and she had to type in the starting letter (from a choice of 4). She loved it, and did a better job than I thought she would for her first time. I'm excited to see what else it has to offer.
Kim - I remember holding on to papers so that I wouldn't be the first to turn them in, too. I also remember being in AP English and catching crap because I was also on the dance team. Apparently you couldn't be smart *and* do any extracurricular activities.
Emily - Starfall is the curriculum they are using. Morgan LOVES that website! She's really doing well, I was just sad that her starting point was so far from where some of the other kids are. That's the perfectionist in me. :) She's learning about 3 words a night right now and is up to 20+, so I'm happy about that. Just wish I would have (1) had the time to work on this with her more before Kindergarten -- that whole working mom guilt! and (2) known what to do with her! I will know better for Bennett!
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