Our conference brag.
Warning: braggy post ahead.
We had Madelyn's first parent/teacher conference today. Her teacher is pregnant and due in about a month, so she wanted to do them a little earlier than usual. I had taken Madelyn to school with me today and we were running a little late, so Josh dropped me off and then took the kids to Marsha's briefly and came back about 5 minutes late. Her teacher and I were talking babies in the mean time. She is naming her little girl Madison (and had debated between that and Madelyn) and she said it was funny to find out Madelyn's brother's name is Carter, because that was their boy name choice. :)
Anyway, her teacher had shown me Madelyn's progress chart a couple weeks ago when I was observing another group of kids at Maddie's school. She was showing me how they assess kids at the beginning of the year. Basically it is a kindergarten readiness checklist. It is all the things they want kids to know before they enter kindergarten. So they assess them at the beginning of the year to see what they need to work on and then they assess them at the end of the year to see their progress.
Madelyn is one of only 3 kids in the program who will not be old enough to go to kindergarten next year. She has already met all of the end-of-preschool goals on the checklist. The only exceptions are that Madelyn is not able to copy all of the shapes (meaning her teacher draws a triangle and she draws a triangle on her paper) and she had a little trouble with the zipping assessment. Madelyn could zip at the end of the spring but she hasn't really had to practice over the summer (no jackets) so I'm sure she'll have that one figured out in no time. She also has learned to draw a couple shapes in just this past week.
So her teacher said she'll be moving on to some enrichment activities with her. I noticed she did come home with some worksheets on Thursday that the kids I was with that morning didn't do (like tracing numbers from 1-20). She said the they will focus on fine motor skills and pre-reading skills with her throughout the year, but she'll still do what the other kids are doing too. She does need to work on her fine motor skills, but she is quickly improving. When she first started school she only knew how to write a small handful of letters. Today I went through her little dry-erase book and she had been practicing every letter, capital and small. She can't do them all freehand, but she has made huge improvements in the last month and a half alone. She is still pretty shaky on some of them, especially when tracing. She does better when she writes them herself than when she traces them.
Her teacher said it has been a long time since she has seen a little girl as smart as she is for her age. She is going to start sending home reading books for her. She said she will send about 4 home at a time and would like us to work on one book a week. She went through all the steps of how to read it to her. She said to then put it away for a week, and if when we pull it back out she can still read it, then we'll know she really knows it - rather than having memorized it. It was kind of funny because we're pretty sure she could read the first book she showed us without us even pre-reading it for her. The only thing she might need to work on is pointing to the words herself, rather than us pointing for her.
I had asked a couple weeks ago if Madelyn ever acted shy in school. I told them how when we took Madelyn to the doctor she got really bashful. They had to give her an eye exam and they were asking her if she knew some shapes. I told them she could do the letter chart and Madelyn was so mumbly that I don't think they believed she knew her letters. Her teacher said she is VERY outspoken and doesn't give off-the-wall answers like some kids that age tend to. They always seem surprised that I come in knowing as much about what she's been doing at school. Apparently most kids don't tell what they did all day. Of course I have the advantage of knowing what their routine is from being in there, so I kind of know the kinds of questions to ask.
I asked today if she is ever whiny at school. I said she isn't usually at home but when she first started school she would come home and stomp off or throw a little tantrum when she didn't get her way. She said, "Well she does like to get her way, but all preschoolers do... but she is not whiny at all. She is friends with all the kids and she likes to help them learn. She really is a model child, and I'm not just saying that because I work with you." She has called her a "model child" a couple times now.
She also said she is amazed at how quickly she picks up on and learns things. She said she'll show her how to do something once and she just gets it. She is also impressed with Madelyn's desire to learn. I'm pretty impressed with that too. Since she started school she wants to be learning constantly. She asks really good questions now. She likes to practice the things she learns at school. She just always wants to be learning something new.
The teacher sent us home with a sheet of 30 words to start a word wall for her. She said to hang them up as she learns them. I brought them home and she knew 25 or more of them already.
Like I said, I took her to a class at my university today. They used her as a model for one of the assessments we have to do on concepts of print. She did really well and really had fun. She was a little mumbly like she was at the doctor though. Of course there were about 15 college students, a professor, and a TA staring at her while she preformed for them. Concepts of print are things like knowing what the cover of the book is, the difference between a word and a letter, the difference between print and pictures, where you start reading, that you go from left to right, etc. Madelyn did really well though. She did have some issues with the question asking the end of the story is. She pointed to the back cover. My professor said that is a common answer, especially when there is a picture on the back of the book. She also had a little trouble when she asked Madelyn to point to the words as she read. She started out doing really well but then she was distracted by the pictures. I'm pretty sure she could have done it if it wasn't a book that was new to her. Afterwords, my teacher invited her up to her office and let her pick out a book to take home. She thought she was hot stuff being a big kid in college. ;) Of course she probably thinks I'm a liar because I told her we don't have toys at my school and my teacher was well prepared for Madelyn's visit. She had several games for us to play involving toys. That is definitely my favorite class though. The teacher reminds me of Annetta from Kroger. She really makes her class fun.
Anyway... I know bragging is annoying, but I'm just so proud so I needed to post. I kind of didn't know what to say during the meeting because I am so used to trying to not make a big deal out of Madelyn's accomplishments to people. I mean a lot of times I find myself acting like she can't do things she can if it might make someone feel bad. For example, I said something to a friend one day about something Madelyn did in school and she seemed so shocked because it wasn't something her little guy is doing in school yet that I hurried and made up an excuse about it and how it wasn't a big deal. It was just nice to hear how well she is doing from someone who isn't biased.
I asked her teacher if she thought she was going to get bored with two years of preschool. Actually, now that I think about it, she might have thought I meant would she get bored with preschool this year. Anyway, she said she didn't think so because she would just keep finding way to challenge her. I really don't want to start Madelyn in kindergarten early. For one thing, she is still petite. She looks so much younger than some of the older kids at preschool. For another, I'd feel like I was rushing her out of her childhood. Also, I would rather her not have to start kindergarten until I'm done with school, although that isn't actually a huge deal. Mostly it is the idea that I would feel like I'm losing a whole year of her childhood. But at the same time, while this teacher is happy to continue to challenge Madelyn, I worry that she is going to get bored somewhere along the way, if that makes sense. If by the time she's done with preschool, she's at a 1st grade level... won't she be bored in kindergarten? Maybe not. I guess time will tell. Hopefully she'll just have a string of great teachers that are happy to work with her at her level, whatever that may be.
Ok my braggy post is over now. :)