Sunday, January 15, 2012

Lessons in Olive

At Olive's glowing parent teacher conference last week we were told, "She can read," and we were all, "Yeah, she has a lot of sight words," and they were like, "That's not what we mean." Apparently she has also already reached many end-of-the-year goals for the pre-kindergarten program she will attend next school year. (They are NAEYC accredited.) This, they emphasized, is especially mind-blowing since she only goes two mornings a week and has missed more than two months of school due to illness and her mother being a mysophobe. They asked us for goals, and we were like, "Can you make her scream at us less? Be a little more reasonable about, say, everything?" And, of course, they were like, "Whaaa? She's a delight! We've never seen her cry! Or have a tantrum!" She also doesn't swear, or yell "Don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining!" Oh, I see, she's not comfortable there yet. No problem, we'll stick our apologies back into our pockets and save them for next time.


Tonight Jason pulled out a book she'd never seen before, buried deep from her brother's learning to read days. She read the first 4-word sentence with 100% accuracy, and then the 5-word sentence that followed, and so on, until she realized Jason and I were making holy shitballs our 3 year old can read faces at each other.

She immediately threw the book aside and bellowed, "I don't know how to read!"

It sure was fun while it lasted.

3 comments:

Mrs. Bird said...

Yay for Olive!! Brooklyn knows all her letters and many sounds. I go back and forth between teaching her explicitely and just letting her learn on her own at this point...

Heidi said...

We're doing the latter this time around -- we learned our lesson with her big brother. Even with art I believe very strongly that it's the process, not the product -- we just let her go, and wow!

Honestly, they have such different personalities and learning styles we're not quite sure how they're related. As my dad says, I have a 3 year old who wants to be 8 and an 8 year old who wants to be 3. So true...

Heidi said...

We are currently in the middle of another "straighten up and fly right" lesson with G, after receiving word from his teacher last week that he didn't read a single question on the NWEA. (Just like last fall, except this time he admits it.) UGH!!!! (Banging head against wall, pulling hair out...)