Oh how I dread report cards. Carly came home with hers last week. Ugh... Okay, so it wasn't really bad, but it does show me just how far behind she is. I swear she has regressed this year. Not sure if this is all to overwhelming for her or what the problem is. Carly loves school. She loves to learn. Matter of fact, she plays school at home, all the time.One area of regression that we have seen, is the printing of her name. She was just about to master her name (first name) a few months back. Now, it's barely legible. I think it has to do with the school trying to teach her how to spell her last name. I know she needs to learn how to spell her first and last name, but can't we wait until she has a solid, concrete, legible printing for her first name?
On the other hand, we have seen Carly start to pick on the basic concepts of reading. Which is super! She recognizes words. She doesn't always print the letters to words, but at school the teacher gave her a magnetic board with magnetic ABC's, and she spells many of her spelling words on that board. HUGE! Another thing that we've seen, is her ability to do a simple word searches. Blows my mind that she is able to do that. It pleases the teacher too. These are all signs that this little girl will soon be reading.
Then, we have math. She is a little confused with that. And, according to the teacher...puts her math away before she's done. She tells the teacher, "no, all done". However, she recognizes numbers 1-10, grasps their concepts in the math world, and is able to write them fairly well. The teacher says that when they have math projects, Carly gets very interested, but otherwise, she would just as soon have nothing to do with it.
I guess the biggest obstacle in Carly's way right now, is her speech. Yes, her speech is exploding. She has added several new words. Puts words together to form sentences (small sentences). And has oodles of approximations that she didn't have at the beginning of the year. Still...it's hard for her to communicate with her peers and her teacher. Although, everyone is pleased that she continues to advance in speech.
As far as behavior. Carly is very well behaved. She follows directions. Does as she's told (except when it comes to math). She pays attention. And from what I've been told, is much better behaved than many of the typical children in her classroom.
In comes the report card. Did I say how I dread report cards? It's just a confirmation that, yes..my kid is way behind her peers. No matter how many positives I can come up with, the report card says it all.
4 comments:
HUGS!!!
I hate report cards too, but Carly will do things in her own time, you'll see! Tanner my autistic son had a horrible year last year, and I worried that he had regressed a lot. But he's doing great this year and is catching up for lost time. Although he is still way behind his peers too!
Don't stress over report cards it's something all of us teachers have to do. Go by her IEP goals and the progress she makes there. To me the comments tell the parent more than the grade card itself. As for writing her name I know at school it's more structure but at home let her use colored pencils, markers, shaving cream on a cookie sheet, pudding anything to make it different and do it with her. You can focus on her first name since that is an area of concern for you, let the school worry about the last name. A name tag with both her names to look at is good too. Carly may just want to do both.
At one point our daughter carried a special wallet (actually the picture slots) with pictures to help her communicate with her peers. Her peers were encouraged to speak with her and try to have her repeat them when she showed them a picture and the word of what she wanted to do with them such as play on the swings, color, etc. it was difficult for them to understand her signing. She outgrew the wallet very quickly as her friends worked with her. Peers can do wonders. Even now at age 22 she still runs into kids from school that tell her they remember her. (I sign anonymous only because I'm too lazy to set up an account....lol)
I certainly understand the mixed emotions with report cards! they are hard to get; but it sounds like Carly is making progress and that is what is important (as I try to remind myself of this!)
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