You may remember my dilemma with Spencer last summer with his delay in reading skills. He repeated kindergarten this year and is doing great in everything except reading. It continues to challenge him. It's like there is something blocking his ability to understand the relationship between the letters, sounds and words. Reading is frustrating for him and for me.
I met with his teacher last week to talk about his needs. They are going to have Spencer evaluated for possible learning disabilities. He will continue to get extra support from the reading specialist at the school and he will be moved on to first grade in the fall. He will go to the summer school program during summer to get extra help. We are looking into getting some tutoring help for him. I don't think he has a disability. I think he is just at a slower pace than other kids his age. Poor Spence. I really want this skill to "click" in his brain. I know it is so important for him to have good reading ability because it is the foundation for so much in his future. I am confident that we are on the right path of support for him.
Sometimes I worry that this problem is caused by our large family. I worry that he is lost in the shuffle. I don't have as much one on one time with any of the kids as a family with less kids would. Is that what Spencer needs? I expressed these concerns to his teacher. Her response made me feel so great. His problem isn't because he has lots of brothers and sisters. She said some wonderfully positive things about the joys of teaching children who come from large families. I don't hear things like that very often and I left the conference feeling so validated and joyful. I'm so thankful that we have been blessed with such a wonderful teacher. I know there are so many people on Spencer's team rooting for him and he will catch up thanks to the efforts of all of them.
I'm struggling with a tough decision. Spencer is having difficulty in his kindergarten. He is behind where he should be at the end of the year with reading. His teacher asked us about two months ago to start thinking about the possibility of holding him back and repeating kindergarten. His teacher said that socially he is right where he should be to enter 1st grade. She said that he doesn't struggle with math. It's just the reading that he lacks skills with. She said that he would be behind and possibly struggle through first grade. She said it might be hard for him to catch up.
Since meeting with her, I have thought about it a lot. I believe that he is socially right where he should be. I believe that when he started Kindergarten, he wasn't behind the other kids. I worry that it is something I did or didn't do with him. We read books together and do his homework, but we don't do workbooks or flashcards or anything like that.
If I do workbooks or flashcards with him over the summer, is that time enough to catch him up? I see progress already between when we met several months ago and today.
For some reason, my gut says I should send him on to first grade. But I am still very unsure--could go either way. Anyone have good experience with this? Any teachers out there have advice for me?
Today, Spencer did the cutest thing at church. He volunteered to be the reverence child before Sacrament. This entailed standing with his arms folded in front of the congregation as a reminder for them to be reverent as they entered the chapel. He did an excellent job. When it was time to start the service, the bishop spoke to him and thanked him and asked him to return and sit with his family. Spencer didn't want to sit down though. The bishop opened the meeting and thanked Spencer and let everyone in the congregation know that Spencer didn't want to leave the stand. Spencer was very serious as he stood there and the bishop jokingly tried to get him to sit down; he even offered him a seat with the Bishopric. Spencer didn't want to budge. He was going to be the reverence child and no one was going to move him! Finally, Chris went up and took his hand and walked him back to our seat. It was cute!
Today at Spencer's preschool, the children made soup. Each child had to bring in a vegetable of their choice. We had several carrots, broccoli, potatoes, zucchini, corn, green beans, green and red pepper, celery and cauliflower. The children cut their vegetables and put them in Mrs. Lloyd's pot of broth. The soup cooked and simmered while they played. Their discussions around the cutting table were very interesting. I was privy to a very intimate conversation regarding the reality of the class puppet, Henrietta. Spencer was certain that she is a real live person and was confused when the other children said she is a puppet and Mrs. Lloyd talks for her. I still don't think he believes them. The children ate the soup together for snack with crackers and juice. Mrs. Lloyd and the moms present also ate the soup, which was very good. Spencer loved it and drank up the broth left in his bowl. Mrs. Lloyd let me take the leftover soup home which I did, however I did not put the lid on very tightly. I turned a corner and most of the broth poured into the footwell of the van. Ugh!! I left a little soup in the driveway of the Dalebout's house when I picked up Cameron. (Sorry Stacie!) I left a little soup in the parking lot of the bank when I dropped off Gavin. (Sorry Chase Bank!) I left a lot of soup in our driveway when I cleaned out the car. It was yuck. The boys ate what was left of the soup for a midnight snack tonight. They really liked it!
The knives look dangerous, but they were using those dull, pumpkin saws to cut the vegetables. Most of them wouldn't cut and I ended up cutting a large portion of the vegetables.
Lately, I've been thinking about some of the more interesting things I took for show and tell in my life. Spencer has to take something for show and tell every Monday and it is supposed to be not a toy. It is supposed to be something interesting for the other kids to see. Personally, I think 4 year olds find other kids toys very interesting to look at, but that might just be me. As we hunt around our house and yard to find things for him to take in, I am reminded of some of the things I took in as a child.
The first show and tell that I remember was in 1st grade. I had started collecting Smurf figurines. Every week, if I practiced my piano like I was supposed to, my mom would take me to J.I. Cooper and buy me a Smurf. (If I didn't practice like I was supposed to, it might surprise you to know that she would spank me with a wooden spoon. Actually, that was just once. And I am certain that I and my smart mouth deserved every spank.) I could stand before the Smurf display for hours trying to decide which one to purchase. The first one I chose was Postman Smurf. I loved him and played with him. I kept collecting Smurfs until I had about 9, which I thought was about 100. So the first show and tell, I bring my Postman Smurf in to show my class. I tell about it and how much I like it and how I have 8 other Smurfs at home. I was really proud of myself and sat really tall in my seat. A little later, some kid gets up with his giant bag of smurfs. He probably had over 50 smurfs. Everyone was in awe of his Smurf collection. Somehow my one little Postman Smurf seemed small and insignificant. I was totally dejected. Who gets their kids that many smurfs?
Also in first grade, I took in a "Merlin." You have to be at least 30 to know what a Merlin is. I loved my Merlin. Played with it constantly. I wish I had it now to show my kids. They would probably die laughing at it.
Second grade was the year of the strange show and tells. It was in this year that I took in a giant puffball mushroom, a cow's tooth and the most wonderful baby pictures in the world.
The giant puffball mushroom grew in my Grandad's yard in Haslett. With my dad's help, I carefully extracted it from it's home in the yard, placed in a shoe box and rode with it cradled on my lap for the 2.5 hour drive back to Toledo. I cared for my mushroom in my room until it was show and tell day and then took it in to my class. My teacher, Mrs. Alexander, was actually really impressed. I got to keep the mushroom in the classroom on display for several days until the mushroom started to stink. Then I took it home and kept it in my room where it continued to eminate the most horrible smell. Slowly, it opened and rotted and released fungi spores all over my room. It was really probably quite unhealthy but my mom was in the hospital and my room was a mess anyway. No one really noticed. Finally, the stench was even too much for me and I threw the mushroom away. It was a sad day. While looking on the web about the mushroom, here's an article about the harms of inhaling the mushroom spores. Guess I'm lucky to be alive. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00032029.htm
Also in 2nd grade, I took in a cow's tooth. My grandpa had a great woods behind a far field he owned. Once, I was exploring the woods and came upon a bone head of a cow; aka: skull. I was mystified. Right before my eyes was the entire skull. It was amazing! I brought my dad to see it and he also thought it was pretty neat. But not neat enough to take home. I begged and pleaded. Finally, we came to a compromise. I could take a tooth. Which I did and carried home in my pocket back to Toledo. I took it for show and tell that week. I could tell the other kids were very impressed.
Finally, in second grade, I took in the most amazing pictures of my new baby sister. She was born 12 weeks early and weighed just 2lbs 15ozs. She was 14 inches long. I showed these precious snapshots of her bursting with big sibling pride. I remember my teacher tearing up viewing the sweet photos. They really were wonderful to behold. Images of a tiny, red baby being sustained with all kinds of tubes and miracles of modern medicine. She was the miracle baby. She still is.
So that's my show and tell experience. Back to the hunt for something interesting for Spencer to take next week!
On Friday, Spencer's class had a field trip to the Cobblestone Farm in Ann Arbor. It was a very fun and educational outing for the children and they really enjoyed it. We churned butter outside a log cabin. Spencer said it was a house made of trees. Inside the house, they learned about candle preserving, mouse holes, old time stoves and ticking mattresses. They got to try on old day clothing, make their own ticking mattress, make a wooden toy, de-corn a cob of corn and eat the butter they made on some cornbread. Spencer spent a lot of time rearranging logs and climbing on things. It was a great time!
The three musketeers building something under the bleachers
