OH this is soooo awesome!! His class has gotten to the letter I and I noticed that he knew other letters because whenever we were out in public he would try to read labels and such so I tested him and he knows all of his letters and the sounds that they make!! So then I went and got "BOB" books and he automatically read the first two books with little problems. I emailed his teacher and she called me back right away and told me she tested him today and he will be put in the "reading group"!!!!! This is sooooo great. I am so proud of him. HE now checks out certain books from the library and also has a book every two weeks with sight words to practice with. This is soooo great. I am on cloud nine!!!
Edited to add that if you don't already know Adam just started kindergarden.
Karrie
That is soooooo awesome!! YAY!!
Woohoo! That is so awesome! What a smart little guy. :)The good schools would be the only reason we live on a military base..lmao You should see the housing here. It's horrible. THey have started building new houses here on fort campbell but we are still in the old housing that has probably been here since the base was built...lol A LONG TIME. Military housing doesn't have any carpet either....it's this hospital grade tile everywhere so any carpet in my home I have laid myself. Yea...we moved onto post for the DOD school system. My dream home can wait I guess....
Karrie
Karrie...that is awesome! Keep up the good work Adam!
Flip...He doesn't qualify for any special education with the school anymore. So no...He doens't have an aide or speech, or OT etc. He doesn't have an IEP anymore either. We were really taken aback when they took his IEP away. He just doesn't qualify educationally anymore. We are currently looking into a 504 plan but so far there have been no issues....even with social (as far as what the teacher can see anyway) Also it's just kindergarden...everyone loves each other in kindergarden for the most part and eveyone is excepted. It's when they get a bit older that there are more issues with the cruelness that kids unleash.
Fred...He's pretty much on track with the group of kids that she put him with so I am just doing what she asks of me which is help him learn to read his P book daily, and go over the word flash cards daily....Then let him independantly read the story they are working on daily and also going over his flash vocabulary words daily. Nothing extra but honestly I don't know where I would find time to do anything "extra" lol His P book is pretty lengthy and he doesn't know most of the words yet but he is suppose to learn to read it fluently and then take a test on it. He gets this book for a week but if he doens't have it down by then he can check it out for another week. THe other book that the group is doing together is a very simple book that he can read independantly and it just builds his confidence level and they stay on that story for 2 weeks then move on to another one. But like I said...I don't know how Iwould have time to even push him even more..lol
Karrie
[QUOTE=karjab30]Thanks so much for the responses.
Flip..Yes he is in regular education kindergarden. He loves school. I worry more now about him socially and knowing things that the other children just "know" without being taught you know? But academically he does very well.
Karrie
[/QUOTE]
That's great! I worry more about the social stuff too. We've got a couple years before Kindergarten, but I'm very interested to hear about this. Does your son have an aide? Do they address social skills at all in his IEP?
Interesting... I'm not even sure that the girl's teachers realize that they can read. They haven't mentioned anything about Reading groups, nor have they given us any instructions to help them work through their library books or anything... The DO have something called a "reading buddy", though - who is a fourth grade kid who reads with them, though I'm not sure what that's about. Meeting coming up, though! Find out then.
I definitely understand about lack of time to work on this at home! I have the same problem :) I think that letting the reading evolve is probably the best way, anyways. I worked with my son when he was younger and he was reading pretty young, but he didn't become a fluent reader until he was well into first grade (by fluent, I mean being able to read storybooks without having to stop and sound out the individual words), so even the hot house flowers, I think, only can be pushed so far - you have to wait until their ready (and from what little research I've read, most kids truly aren't ready for reading instruction until past five, earliest) - so, it probably doesn't do much good to push anyways. I reckon if they're picking it up on their own, they'll continue to do so.
Congratulations - sounds like you have pretty good schools there.
Thanks so much for the responses.
Flip..Yes he is in regular education kindergarden. He loves school. I worry more now about him socially and knowing things that the other children just "know" without being taught you know? But academically he does very well.
Karrie
Good new, Karrie! Are you considering really hammering on the reading now, as a strategy to have him be able to keep up in a mainstream class next year? I'm on the fence with this. So far, I've just let their reading evolve naturally rather than "teaching" them, but I'm considering accelerating the process.
I know some parents on the board are using their children's reading skills to help them with their school placements - I don't know about you, but I have a hard time imaginging my kids sitting nicely at a desk and listening to a teacher "teach" at teh front of the class for extended periods of time (not sure how much of this is done in first grade, but my 2nd grade son says that this is the format - lecture, followed by small group help). I reckon that if we really hammer on the reading that, perhaps, written instruction could supplement our kid's shortcomings in joint attention and language comprehension issues. So far, in kindergarten, there doesn't seem to be much large group instruction so the girls are hanging in there, but I worry about next year, of course.
Probably a bit deeper than you wanted to go this this -sorry! Congratulations!