Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Fruits of Labor

Yesterday we had our meeting with our academic advisor. Because of the craziness this year with the school moving, Julia had not had a reading assessment done since the end of Kindergarten. Yesterday we had some time at the end of our meeting so Karley and I stepped out of the office and Julia had her first reading assessment of the year. When they finished her advisor came out and told me that she gave Julia a total of 5 tests and was doing well but decided to end on a high note and that she had had enough "tests" for one sitting. Julia tested at or possibly above (since she didn't get to a point where the words were too hard for her) 4th grade level (she is in Grade 1) and she tested also in the 4th grade level for reading comprehension. These results were great to hear, but not unexpected since I'm with her all the time and I kind of already knew she would test somewhere in there. BUT, the cool part for me was that the advisor said during the reading comprehension testing Julia gave all her answers in complete sentences. The advisor was really surprised and pleased by that. THAT was great news for me because it is something we have been working on a lot this year and I feel like I am constantly reminding her to use complete sentences. It's nice to know that it is paying off!!!

So, my challenge now, pull some of my time and energy out of working with Julia on her language arts lessons and put MORE time into Karley's. This may be tricky since I don't really see Karley particularly WANTING to know how to read.

But for now, I'm going to enjoy these successes, knowing that it is probably only a matter of days or weeks that my frustration level will peak yet again!

1 comment:

Laura said...

Hey- great job, Mom! Clearly you are a very good teacher too. Glad you have seen some "fruit" for all your labor. I know you will be fine home schooling two. (A friend of mine home schools 8!) I think you will enjoy it too.
Hey- you should get a Facebook account. I looked for you on there. I've connected with all of my old high school friends and people I haven't talked to in years! You don't have to keep it up like a blog. Hop on board!