Last summer, I bought him a composition book so he could practice his writing everyday. All he had to do was write three sentences that told what he did while I was at work that day. Some of the pages had all three sentences crammed into three ruled lines, while others had letters so big, only one sentence could fit. He obviously wasn’t taking it seriously, so I stopped my grand experiment and right now, I’m not even sure where the composition book went.

Once he started at the new school, I noticed that his handwriting is still crazy looking and after a couple of weeks finally just put my foot down and anytime I see him writing like a madman, I erase everything and make him rewrite it. His handwriting was still looking messy when it was time for our first parent-teacher conference.

The new teacher was very pleased at his test scores. The school district has a new test this year which measures each child’s reading and math skills. For reading, the test measures “reading fluency of 2nd grade passages” and determines “the number of words read correctly in one minute”. The average test scores for the entire district were between 25 and 60. Stephen’s score was 136.

The mathematics portion of the test was in two segments. Mathematical Computation measures the “student’s ability to compute numbers in 2nd grade math operations, including addition and subtraction”. Mathematical Concepts and Applications “shows the student’s ability to use math in solving problems including measurement, time, money, temperature, fractions, geometry, place value, graphs, and story problems.”

Now I didn’t write down which was which, but one of the math averages fell between 1 and six, while Stephen’s score was 15. The other had averages between 9 and 16, while Stephen scored 40.  The scores aren’t just for his class or even his school, but for the ENTIRE district.

Stephen is so far advanced that he is already beyond the point they want the kids to be at by the END of the school year. The only negative criticisms she had of Stephen were 1) he has a problem with time management (which stems from the fact that he lollygags until the very last possible second because he knows he can do whatever they throw at him), and 2) his handwriting (of course).

I am trying to work with him on his time management issue because I suffer from the same thing. It makes us look unorganized and even a little flighty and needs to be treated like any other problem.  However, I have given up on his handwriting a long time ago.

This morning I came into the kitchen,  saw Stephen doing his homework (which like a bad dad I forgot to remind him about over the Thanksgiving break until last night at bedtime) and noticed that his handwriting was crisp, clean, and most importantly legible. The letters were all of a uniform size and his kerning was perfect. I was shocked and amazed (no irony or hyperbole in that statement).

His handwriting was perfect and it was done without any prodding from either of his parents. It looks like there is hope for the boy yet.

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Ever since school started, Stephen has been looking forward to being able to go to the school library. He has been making all kinds of plans for the types of books he was going to check out. At the top of his list was almanacs. I wasn’t too sure they would let him check out an almanac since it was a reference book, but at least he wanted it.

Today was the first time his class was able to go to the library and it was a pretty disappointing time. Even if he couldn’t get almanacs, I know that he is a big fan of the ‘Diary of A Wimpy Kid’ books and would have gotten one of them. Unfortunately, his class was only allowed to select from a small group of books. According to Stephen, “it wasn’t even three shelves.”

So instead of getting a book that he wanted or even a book that he would have read, he ended up getting a Todd Parr book. I’m pretty sure they are well crafted books, but they are so below his reading level that it isn’t funny. I was considering a letter to the school administration about this situation, but instead I think I will give him some books that are closer to his reading level.

However, I’m not sure how much I will be hurting him in the long run. If I challenge his mind at home and they fail at school, then he will be less inclined to listen to the teachers.

thousand
difficult
I’ve
describe
you’ll
separate
according
throughout
variety
particular
column
experiment
knowledge
original
indeed
chief
represent
develop
twenty
familiar
community
electricity
experience
purpose

When I asked him about the words, he didn’t remember where they came from, but he knew them all with no hesitation. I wanted him to take them to his teacher and let her know that I approve of these words for him, but for some reason he didn’t want to do that. I’m pretty sure it is because he didn’t want to be insulting. Like my brothers and father, my son has the ability to not say stupid and insulting things to people. Unfortunately, I don’t have that ability.

Personally I don’t think this list of words should be given to every first grader, but Stephen isn’t like most first graders. I used to work in a learning lab for adults returning to school after a long time (sometimes decades) and there were a bunch of computerized tests the students would take to determine their reading and learning levels. I always thought there should be something like for school age children.

While I don’t think it would be a good idea to take Stephen and put him in a higher grade the way the system is current configured, I would love to see the first month or so of the school year devoted to this sort of placement testing. After that the students could be grouped according to learning ability. Age would also be factored in because we don’t want slow teenagers in the same class with quick preteens. Despite the same learning ability, the maturity level might be drastically different.

I just wish I had the time and the knowledge to go the homeschooling route, but the main drawback with that would be Stephen developing stronger social skills. I know where my weaknesses are.

day

red

by

eat

here

say

car

play

He was bored with these words before I was finished with cutting out the flash cards. To spice things up, I turned them upside down and held them up to the light so that he could read them backwards. And he still got all of them without hesitation.

So I decided to experiment with more advanced words to see where my six year was in the grand scheme of things. I had him read a back blurb from the back of Dynamite Entertainment’s Sherlock Holmes #5. I told him this is just an experiment, “skip any words you don’t know and there is no way to get this wrong”.

The original paragraph I had him read was: “Dynamite’s Sherlock Holmes launch and story is reminiscent of the their publishing of The Lone Ranger. Taking a classic character, making him accessible for today’s fans and giving him new life. I am also always impressed by John Cassaday’s cover designs, and his exe-cution, and Holmes is no let down, in fact, it’s taking it up a notch. Leah (Moore) and John Reppion are writing a story that will help cement their careers. Creating a new original story instead of an adaptation of previous works is a plus for comics and Holmes fans!”

The bolded words in the above paragraph are the ones he missed:

reminiscent (which a lot of adults get wrong),

Ranger (which surprised me a little, but not much),

accessible (again a word a lot of adults get wrong),

Cassaday (a name),

exe-cution (this was hyphenated because of a line break, I explained that the hyphen means that it is all one word),

Reppion (a name),

adaptation (not surprising) and

previous (which he thought was the word ‘precious’, which tells me that he didn’t read it all the way through and not that he didn’t know what it was).

Then I followed up with a back blurb from BOOM! Studios’ excellent graphicization* of Do Android’s Dream Of Electric Sheep. Same rules, but instead of a paragraph, he only had to read a single sentence.

The original sentence was “The most consistently brilliant science fiction writer in the world.”

OK, it is actually a sentence fragment, but the only word he missed was consistently and not by much because he pronounced it ‘constantly’ (which would also work in the context of the sentence).

I guess I am a little worried that while he knows words like publishing, character, impressed, original, brilliant and science he is given words like eat, say, car and play to study. That may fly now, but in a few years he will be bored in class and will just started to get lazy. When that points comes, it will be hard to keep him on a good track. Even if he doesn’t get lazy, he might get to the point where he starts wondering “Why should I try so hard when everybody else is getting by with doing much less?”

OK, maybe I’m more than a little worried.

* I know graphicization is not a real word, but it is as good a description of what BOOM! Studios is doing as anything else. Instead of adapting the book into comic book form, they are taking the entire text and adding pictures to it, so while it looks like a regular comic book and reads like a regular comic book, it really isn’t. Most non comic book readers won’t notice much of a difference (and a lot of regular comic book readers don’t notice one), but there is a slight change in presentation. I HIGHLY recommend the title to any science fiction, comic book, graphic arts or literature fans.

At the last Parent-Teacher Conference, my son’s teacher mentioned “some concerns” that she had with him. Specifically his behavior in class. I don’t want to go into the details about what she said, but I don’t agree with her. Today a small plastic bag was sent home, containing a stack of flash cards and the following letter:

Parents,
In this bag are words your child needs to know to help them be successful readers in Kindergarten. Please practice these words with your child as much as possible. When your child is able to read all of the words listed below and on this set of flash cards we will send home a new set of words to practice.

Thank you for your participation!

all, am, are, at, ate, be, black, blue, brown, but, cat, came, dad, did, do, dog, eat, four, get, good, green, has, he, into, like, love, mom, must, new, no, now, on, orange, our, out, pink, please, ran, red, ride, saw, say, she, so, son, that, there, they, this, too, under, want, was, well, went, what, white, who, will, with, yellow, yes

The words in bold are the words he missed. Keep in mind that he only had to read the words and not the accompanying letter.

There are the words on his flash cards, which he got all correct:
million
opposite
therefore
cover
various
wouldn’t
general
doesn’t
method
beyond
would
ancient
we’ll
century
shook
believe
capital
where
especially
necessary
temperature
attention
kitchen
electric

I really need to get his reading level tested because he is in Kindergarten and has no problem with the vast majority of words that he comes across. Unfortunately, when he is in the classroom, he doesn’t do any work. He’s not rude or combative about it, he just experiences a work stoppage and stares into space. No coloring, no using scissors, no using glue sticks and if he doesn’t feel like it, no writing. We cannot figure out why he just stops, but he does.

I would be a lot more worried if he ever got that unresponsive like at home. However, he has no problem engaging with other people and regularly has intelligent conversations with people who older than he is. I will admit that he has a problem playing with kids closer to his age, but he finds them boring. He would much rather play computer games or with his trains.

I am not one of those people who confuse the ability to learn in a classroom setting with intelligence. So while I may worry about his ability to sit down in a classroom and do the assigned work without someone wanting to label him with a learning disorder of some sort, I have absolutely no concerns about his intelligence.