Report Card and Conferences

We had a mid-year conference with Madeline's teacher yesterday. It was a very good meeting. We learned some interesting things about reading and about Madeline herself! As we suspected Madeline is reading at a much higher level than her teacher placed her. She does need to work on speed and smoothness and now that we know the direction to move forward we are certain Madeline will thrive. Her readability and comprehension exceeds the year-end goal which places her in the top readers of her class, but she does not read fast and doesn't "squish" her words together. She is more mechanical with her reading which does not surprise me. Her problem solving has always lended itself to the mechanics. So that is good news! Everyone, including the linquist that attended the meeting, was surprised at how high her readability and comprehension was compared to her smoothness and speed. Once again Madeline is showing us exactly how much she is outside the box.

The other great news is that she is focusing on her tasks much better without being overly concerned about everyone else. She has a new assigned seat in the classroom for worktime. Apparently she prefers to kneel on the ground and use her chair as a work surface. And they let her complete her tasks in her own timeframe (to give her extra time for the details since she's extremely detail oriented). To our relief the teacher and the school will allow Madeline to be herself so she can reach her full potential. One of my biggest fears of public school has always been the "conformity" and it's nice to see that Madeline has challenged them enough to give her boundaries while letting her do things in the manner best suited for her. They called her a "Level 4 learner" which is to say that she always thinks outside the box. The linquist put it well: she finds every other way to accomplish a task than the one given. Maybe it is her way of making school more interesting! I love it! I love that she is able to think about things in so many different ways, is goal oriented and creative.

Oh, one other thing! I know you may find this incredibly surprising. The teachers made sure to communicate that Madeline's forte is art. Now that is a BIG surprise. Madeline starts a Pop Art class in a little over a week. It last for six weeks and ends with an art show. We'll keep you updated on that as time goes on...