Friday, November 18, 2005
Parent-Teacher Conference #1
This morning Dina, Phil and I went to Phil's first parent-teacher conference. They don't give out grades in kindergarten, but by all accounts the kid's no dope.
Prior to today's conference Mrs. Swanson, Phil's teacher, individually tested the students to track their progress. (At the beginning of they year Phil was one of three students who tested "at grade level.") Turns out he knows his numbers (he counted to 50 for me a couple days ago), his alphabet, shapes, colors. He did well on the "use this word in a sentence" testing (w/o resorting to "'Rainbow' is a very nice word"-type shenanegins); some of his sentences were seven to ten words long. In the test where he was supposed to group blocks by color or shape, he went ahead and made things out of the blocks instead of just clustering them.
While we were there Phil read us a short book about Sam, Dan and Dad who are disguising themselves for Halloween ("Are you Sam?" "You are Sam!" Phil did a good job of inflecting his voice on the questions.) He also puzzled out how to print his middle name (Nathaniel) based on the sounds of the letters (we gave him the i as a freebie), which seemed to be a first for him.
When Mrs. Swanson commented on how well Phil pays attention and behaves in class, I suggested that he ought to spend all day in school. It was only partly a joke.
Phil's in the advanced reader group and did well on the math testing (they really haven't covered much math, so his addition and subtraction was impressive). He needs to work on his enunciation skills (/th/ sounds like /f/) and focus on finding the right answer to questions rather than trying to intuit it from the questioner (with yes/no questions especially, he tries to read your voice to figure out how he should answer).
BTW Phil's new favorite word is stench.
Prior to today's conference Mrs. Swanson, Phil's teacher, individually tested the students to track their progress. (At the beginning of they year Phil was one of three students who tested "at grade level.") Turns out he knows his numbers (he counted to 50 for me a couple days ago), his alphabet, shapes, colors. He did well on the "use this word in a sentence" testing (w/o resorting to "'Rainbow' is a very nice word"-type shenanegins); some of his sentences were seven to ten words long. In the test where he was supposed to group blocks by color or shape, he went ahead and made things out of the blocks instead of just clustering them.
While we were there Phil read us a short book about Sam, Dan and Dad who are disguising themselves for Halloween ("Are you Sam?" "You are Sam!" Phil did a good job of inflecting his voice on the questions.) He also puzzled out how to print his middle name (Nathaniel) based on the sounds of the letters (we gave him the i as a freebie), which seemed to be a first for him.
When Mrs. Swanson commented on how well Phil pays attention and behaves in class, I suggested that he ought to spend all day in school. It was only partly a joke.
Phil's in the advanced reader group and did well on the math testing (they really haven't covered much math, so his addition and subtraction was impressive). He needs to work on his enunciation skills (/th/ sounds like /f/) and focus on finding the right answer to questions rather than trying to intuit it from the questioner (with yes/no questions especially, he tries to read your voice to figure out how he should answer).
BTW Phil's new favorite word is stench.
Mikesell
1 Snarky Remarks:
Angie Poole, at 12:11 AM
Zoe's new favorite word is furthermore.
Of course, she pronounces it "furddermore."
I think she heard it on the Popeye episode where he runs for president. Which would explain her sudden craving for spinach at every meal :-)