Progress

I've made no secret about my concerns with Lincoln and his struggles at school.  I am still hearing from his teacher that "he is struggling, he needs a lot of work, he will fall behind", etc.  It has been driving me crazy and I keep working with him.  That is not going to change.

I am seeing progress so we are really wondering why I keep hearing that he doesn't know too much.  That he really needs a lot of work with his letter recognition, letter sounds, etc. 

His first letter recognition test at school, he knew none.  At that time, I panicked and couldn't believe that he knew none of the letters at all.  That is when we went on a mission to improve this situation.  We work every single day on his letters and sounds, numbers, patterns, rhyming, etc.  Anything the teacher says he needs to practice, we work on. 

I have no problem with sitting down with him and teaching him, practicing with him and watching him as he learns and masters new letters.  I see improvement. 

The next assessment they did in school, he knew 5 of his letters.  Thank goodness because I knew that he knew some of his letters. However, I also knew that he knew more than those five letters because I work with him everyday.  I told him that he needs to really try hard and think about the letters and make sure he tells the lady the letters that he knows because it is a very important test. 

I have been using letter flashcards and he is learning more and more of them. I lay them out on the floor in random order and he gets to go through one by one and say the letter name and if he knows it, he gets to keep it.  When we are all through, he counts how many he knew and it is so very exciting.  He is up to 13 that he knows and that is amazing. I have to say that it is just as satisfying to me as it is to him because we both work hard to get there.  The ones that he does not know, we go through and I try to teach him the letters in a way that he will remember.  For example, Z is zig zag Z because it looks like a zig zag line.  J is hook your sister, because it looks like a hook and his sister's name is Jada or Jay for short.  It seems to be working. I don't have clues like that for all the letters but some of them. 

His last assessment, he knew 9 letters and I know he knows more but I am happy to see progress in school as well.  I am probably going to email the reading specialist that he works with and just check in with her on her opinion of his progress and what she sees. 

I honestly do not know if I can trust his teacher's opinion or assessment because I have learned a few things that are unfavorable to the situation.  I think she may be biased and she is struggling herself on teaching this classroom.  There are children in the classroom with special needs and I don't think she is handling it very well.

I am going to wait until after a parent/teacher conference to raise any concerns to the principal or administration. I don't have any problem with raising a concern higher up than her because it is for the children in that class that need more support rather than discouragement when they are in the prime learning stages of their lives.  Having a bad kindergarten experience can affect their entire school career.  I don't want that to happen to my child or anyone elses.