Madelyn - Report Cards and Conferences
Madelyn's report card came out last week.
She got all A's except for in Writing Workshop. That was a B.
Conferences are on an as need basis for this time of year and we got a note from her teacher early in February asking that we meet with her. That is fine by me, especially after the last conference where she pretty much diagnosed Maddie with dyslexia.
(FYI - she does not have dyslexia; rather she has the more common "I dont want to miss anything so I'm going to rush thru this shit to go do something else cause I'm seven")
I sent back the conference slip on the 3rd (maybe the 4th - it was definitely the first week of February). On the 18th(!) I still hadnt heard anything back from her teacher so I emailed her. I got back a "I am SO GLAD you contacted me cause I forgot to pencil you in and somehow overlooked this!"
This seems to be a running theme with this teacher. She sends crap home late. She sends homework home photocopied onto the back of school announcements. She spells HER crap wrong (she crossed out maddie's mispelled "Olimpic" and wrote in "Olypic" for OLYMPIC - and that's just one of MANY examples...). She's constantly scribbling out words that she starts to write on Maddie's homework corrections. One math test she sent home with every single answer Maddie wrote in X'd out as wrong... then on the last page wrote OOPS, SORRY! and gave her a 100%. I'm guessing she was looking at the wrong answer key...? Except its 2nd grade math and after you mark 10 (hell, after 5!) answers wrong IN A ROW dont you think to look at the ACTUAL problem and answer rather than just your answer key?
Maddie has gone nearly two weeks without a "Friday Folder" coming home of all her graded school work. It came home the other day and I finally got to see some of her spelling work/tests. She's still only doing so-so in spelling but I have no idea where the words are even coming from. She doesnt bring home a word list, and according to Maddie the tests they are given is like a first shot deal - if you spell all the words correctly, you're good to go and you dont get any spelling homework. Any of the words you spelled wrong come home as homework where she has to write them 5 times each night for five nights straight. And then... and then it doesnt look like she's ever tested on them again.
When I questioned her teacher about spelling words at the first conference back in October, she said she doesnt like to do "spelling lists" because the kids use rote memorization on them rather than actually learning them. Um, first off, who cares? 90% of spelling in your adult life IS memorization - its not really on a conscious level but ultimately you know how to spell cause its just THERE. Its the hard words that you end up sounding out. Second off - wtf does "actually learning them" mean? If you're spelling them RIGHT then you ARE learning them, regardless of how the hell you learned how to spell them.
(This could lead me into a 2 hour diatribe about Maddie's math homework which I actually refuse to help her with if Kevin is around. I get all irritated and pissy cause they've taken ADDITION and SUBTRACTION and turned it into cute little boxes and arrows and word problems and needing to know definitions while *I* am like "add the friggin numbers together; you will never need to know the rest of this shit" but I digress)
Anyway, back to conferences. I cant wait to hear what this teacher has to say. Especially since the last conference with her had me thinking Maddie had a learning disability and was doing so poorly and what were we going to do... and then first marking period report cards came out and the kid had straight A's except for writing workshop (which was a B).
Regardless of what happens, I did start making lists of the words Maddie has been having trouble with out of the folder that just came home. Last night I asked her a few of them at dinner and she rushed through spelling them wrong, but when I told her to SLOW DOWN and think it through, she was able to spell them all fine. Its really just a matter of getting her to focus.
(.... Says her mother who forgot to take the milk out of the car this morning at my parent's house so I now have a gallon of milk sitting in my work fridge to be taken home later today....)
Poor kid is just like me. Smart, looks like she's got it all together, but just a jumbled up mess in the focusing department.
She got all A's except for in Writing Workshop. That was a B.
Conferences are on an as need basis for this time of year and we got a note from her teacher early in February asking that we meet with her. That is fine by me, especially after the last conference where she pretty much diagnosed Maddie with dyslexia.
(FYI - she does not have dyslexia; rather she has the more common "I dont want to miss anything so I'm going to rush thru this shit to go do something else cause I'm seven")
I sent back the conference slip on the 3rd (maybe the 4th - it was definitely the first week of February). On the 18th(!) I still hadnt heard anything back from her teacher so I emailed her. I got back a "I am SO GLAD you contacted me cause I forgot to pencil you in and somehow overlooked this!"
This seems to be a running theme with this teacher. She sends crap home late. She sends homework home photocopied onto the back of school announcements. She spells HER crap wrong (she crossed out maddie's mispelled "Olimpic" and wrote in "Olypic" for OLYMPIC - and that's just one of MANY examples...). She's constantly scribbling out words that she starts to write on Maddie's homework corrections. One math test she sent home with every single answer Maddie wrote in X'd out as wrong... then on the last page wrote OOPS, SORRY! and gave her a 100%. I'm guessing she was looking at the wrong answer key...? Except its 2nd grade math and after you mark 10 (hell, after 5!) answers wrong IN A ROW dont you think to look at the ACTUAL problem and answer rather than just your answer key?
Maddie has gone nearly two weeks without a "Friday Folder" coming home of all her graded school work. It came home the other day and I finally got to see some of her spelling work/tests. She's still only doing so-so in spelling but I have no idea where the words are even coming from. She doesnt bring home a word list, and according to Maddie the tests they are given is like a first shot deal - if you spell all the words correctly, you're good to go and you dont get any spelling homework. Any of the words you spelled wrong come home as homework where she has to write them 5 times each night for five nights straight. And then... and then it doesnt look like she's ever tested on them again.
When I questioned her teacher about spelling words at the first conference back in October, she said she doesnt like to do "spelling lists" because the kids use rote memorization on them rather than actually learning them. Um, first off, who cares? 90% of spelling in your adult life IS memorization - its not really on a conscious level but ultimately you know how to spell cause its just THERE. Its the hard words that you end up sounding out. Second off - wtf does "actually learning them" mean? If you're spelling them RIGHT then you ARE learning them, regardless of how the hell you learned how to spell them.
(This could lead me into a 2 hour diatribe about Maddie's math homework which I actually refuse to help her with if Kevin is around. I get all irritated and pissy cause they've taken ADDITION and SUBTRACTION and turned it into cute little boxes and arrows and word problems and needing to know definitions while *I* am like "add the friggin numbers together; you will never need to know the rest of this shit" but I digress)
Anyway, back to conferences. I cant wait to hear what this teacher has to say. Especially since the last conference with her had me thinking Maddie had a learning disability and was doing so poorly and what were we going to do... and then first marking period report cards came out and the kid had straight A's except for writing workshop (which was a B).
Regardless of what happens, I did start making lists of the words Maddie has been having trouble with out of the folder that just came home. Last night I asked her a few of them at dinner and she rushed through spelling them wrong, but when I told her to SLOW DOWN and think it through, she was able to spell them all fine. Its really just a matter of getting her to focus.
(.... Says her mother who forgot to take the milk out of the car this morning at my parent's house so I now have a gallon of milk sitting in my work fridge to be taken home later today....)
Poor kid is just like me. Smart, looks like she's got it all together, but just a jumbled up mess in the focusing department.