Conversation between Hannah and her grandma Betty

The weekend of May 25 was not easy. It was my husband's death anniversary. So we went to visit my mother-in-law in El Paso. We also went to visit my father-in-law at the cemetery. On the other hand, Hannah had a wonderful time with her grandma. I was impressed about her maturity. HEre is a dialogue:

Grandma, do you feel lonely (without grandpa)?
Yes Hannah, I was married to him for 70 + years. So I miss him.
So why don't you find a boyfriend?
No Hannah, I don't need a boyfriend.
OK.... Then you and my mom need..... Botox! (laughing).

How much is going on in her head thinking about death and life? If this is not maturity, what is it?

Accelerated Reading....

Accelerated Reading (AR) is a program developed by Scholastic. The program is designed to promote/help with reading fluency. Specifically, children select books that are at various levels of proficiency, as determined by grade level. For example, a book that is 2.3 is at the second grade, third month of school grade level.

Kids read and then they take a test. Picture books have 5 questions. Chapter book tests have 10 questions.

Our challenge is reading chapter books. I tried finding books that would be of interest to Hannah based on topic (e.g., books about dogs, for example). But clearly I did not choose the right book since the Puppy series is at a higher level of proficiency. We also tried expository textbooks, example, books on science like the life on penguins in the Antartica. Way tooo difficult.

Hannah likes Ivy and Bean the series on the two friends who are very different from each other. It's a wonderful series.  But getting her to read several chapters on one day is the challenge. So what to do? I decided that besides working with her wonderful tutor, she needs more support, like Kumon. We went there today and Hannah had no trouble concentrating. She was focused. Should we try it? I know it is drill and kill, but they will also work on the basics to give her some confidence, which is what she needs. Any feedback? Any thoughts?

This year....

This year, we have gone from over editing to little writing. So it has been hard to keep Hannah motivated to write. It is interesting to see that in my teaching, I seem to find strategies to help my students become motivated to write (or at least I believe so). However, when it come s to my daughter, I struggle to get her interested in writing.

In part, I attribute this problem to her struggles with concentration. It is hard to write when you can't concentrate. She is doing better though. This summer, no Argentina trip. So she will be going to summer camp and hopefully to the Writing Project at CSULA. This should help her with her reading, which is good, understanding (which is what she struggles with), and writing.

I am proud of her accomplishments. A girl who can deal with obstacles and so many life losses is to be commended!

Overediting in first grade

Hannah's teacher is having her students edit the writing they do. I think this is, at least in part, a consequence of the many years that we spent on making sure that the kids were fluent writers. So much emphasis was placed on fluency that now the pendulum has moved to accuracy. Kids in Hannah's 1st grade class writing several paragraphs in which they have to do pre-writing in a graphic organizer that asks them to write the intro sentence and then what happened first, next finally and a conclusion sentence. When the kids turn in their writing, the teacher writes a lot of red on their papers. Then, much like we do in an academic ESL class, she gives them a handout with some "mistakes." She asks students to correct the mistakes. The problem with this handout is that there are way too many mistakes in each sentence. And there is no pattern to the mistakes. My concern is that if you are going to have your students edit their work, don't overload them with problems, and find a pattern if there is one. As I wrote in another entry, teaching goes well beyond giving out handouts and getting students to do a lot of busy work.....

It's hard to see your parents getting old

It's very hard to see your parents getting old. Especially when they have always been strong and not scared of anything and now suddently they are terrified about death. They know it's coming, this is what is happening to my dad. He escaped from the 2nd WW, was a child who travelled all over, from Italy  to Morocco, back to Italy, from Italy to Israel, then to Brazil, Uruguay and finally entered illegally into Argentina where he has lived ever since. Never afraid of anything and now terrified and angry... Difficult year for the Kamhi family!

Meeting with the school principal

Last Friday, I had a frank conversation with my daughter's school principal. After she and the other teachers told me that eventually H. would catch up, I frankly asked her how a child could catch up if instruction is in piecemail fashion, and all kids do is worksheets and not motivating work like the other kinds in the classroom. I told them, very nicely, that I felt that was being done to the kids in the RR is exactly what is often done with ESL students. I said that as a parent, I am concerned because there is a difference between "modified instruction" and "watered down" instruction. And I felt that what my daughter is getting is the latter. We had a good talk, though the keep insisting that kids eventually catch up. My feeling is that probably  the ones who catch up are those who don't have a significant problem. The others are lost in the stats....

Standards: Guiding light, but used poorly

Hannah is now finishing first grade. She is a great reader, though she wants to read about the topics she likes: Animals and princesses. Last summer, with her kindergarten teacher, we spent a lot of time helping her learn how to read by reading fun, interesting materials + learning how to decode. Now, my focus is to get her to improve her vocabulary and sentence length. So I am doing a lot of expansions, I expand on what she says + then I ask her to the complete sentence and repeat! Yes, I have her do this so that she produces the complete sentence. We do this as a game. I think it's working.

At the same time, it is clear that kids with special needs are quite similar to ESL students, in the sense that they need accommodation. Now, accommodation is very different from watering down expectations. I do not want the curriculum to be dumbed down. I want it to be modified so that she can access the curriculum. I am hoping to make my expectations clear to the school when I meet with the

principal and teachers of Friday.