Last night my husband asked me a very good question, “Is Selena really ready for the Kindergarten material? and How do you know?” I love him for pushing me to the edge to stop and reflect on things.
How do I know that Selena is ready to move on? I think the first obvious answer is that her attention span has increased. She is no longer happy with the 15 to 20 minutes sitting and working on only one workbook page, then a little reading, then some math or what ever we might be doing that day. She is always wanting more, she would sit there for as long as it takes so long as she is getting new material presented to her. In fact as of late when we have sat down she works all 5 to 6 pages in the unit out of her pre-school curriculum. (We only have two letters left to do) I have had to go to the supplement workbook and get her more work.
She works very independently now. I read her the instructions and she does the work without any assistance what so ever. The concepts that this material introduces has been learned, and she doesn’t even have to think twice about what they are asking. New concepts that are coming along here as we finish, are being learned and digested, either that or they are ones we have already discussed in other things we have done.
Selena is working very hard on her writing skills. She increases the amount of letters she can write weekly, and yesterday for the first time wrote numbers. She could easily write the number 1, and she also added the numbers 2, 5, and 9. I see her examining every letter and number now with much thought and then really working on trying to make them herself. I catch her through the day making letters and numbers on everything in site, no not always with a writing tool, but tracing them with her finger. Oh yes, she also uses her crayons and pencils when she has paper.
She is always asking me to teach her new words, and I over hear her in her bedroom trying very hard to pronounce new words in her books all the time. Sometimes she nails them and other times not quite, but she is breaking them down by syllables, there is no problem with her pronunciation skills other then a few letter blends.
She loves numbers, and counts everything. She is understanding pairs, and can tell you how many pieces of something it will take to give everyone one 1 piece, 2 pieces, or 3 pieces. This tells me that the math concept is clicking in.
My husband was still a little unsure of what I was saying, but then I told him you know dear, Selena expresses everyday that she wants to do school, she wants her workbook, she wants to learn. The nicest thing about homeschooling is we can take the material and stretch it out for as long as it takes for her to learn it all. We are free to go back and redo concepts she didn’t really grasp, or we can move as quickly as needed depending upon her learning ability. Now with a little more understanding, my husband is so excited and is looking forward to watching her move forward, now realizing we are in total control of her learning.
From this post it does seem that Selena is ready. To me her desire to write is a mark of readiness, since most of kindergarten material I looked at are heavily based on drawing, tracing and worksheets. Anna has absolutely no interest in these kinds of things, so I know for the fact that she is not ready for a big K step yet.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like you've got a good handle on things. As long as Selena is interested, and able to do the work on her, and some of it on her own - why not move ahead?
ReplyDeleteFrom some of the posts ive seen, i would say she is ready. She is so smart, and can already do so much! Shes advanced in many ares, especially reading. But you will know whether or not she is ready. But at the same time, i guess its better to be in a grade and be ahead in that grade than to be in a grade and fall behind. I know you'll do the right thing though!
ReplyDeleteThe odd thing is she's actually a combination of kindergarten and first grade. So, in reality she's more than ready. A lot of the stuff you regularly describe her as doing is on a first grade level. Reading is of course on a much higher level. Just my experience from teaching in Texas. It'll be fun to see how she does in kinder officially.
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