Today was our first parent/teacher conference. It went AWESOME!!! I just have to say that I'm very reassured now that our move was definitely the right decision for him, and he has a great teacher and school. They push to make sure his needs are met, and I know the other district would have just let him be bored and push him through no matter what.
So, report cards came and he only had 2 "needs improvement" subjects.
The first was "using high frequency words in kid writing." The reason behind that is because they just started Kid Writing very recently so she gave all the kids the same grade on that. The Second thing was his fine motor skills. She gave him needs improvement because he needs practice with the scissors. And I seriously laughed when she said that, and explained how they told us that before, and we had the big scissor incident where he cut his shirt, hair and beloved simba's mane and tail hair. So we've discussed that yes, he can use them, weirdly enough in the wrong hold. So they want him to push to use them in the proper hold, and if it is worse that way over time, he can go back to whatever way is easier for him. Same with holding the pencil. He can do a really nice job writing, but he holds it somewhat weird with all 4 fingers on the side of it, instead of that thumb/finger hold that they want. Again, push to hold it right and if the writing gets all crazy again, let him do whatever way will work for him.
He is doing above and beyond with his sounding things out and trying to write what he is thinking. When she translates it into real spellings, he remembers it immediately. My kid has a sponge brain apparently. When he learns a new word, he insists on writing it multiple times on the backs of his worksheets. New things he is obsessed with recently is blurbs and he has been making pictures that they are "talking". And exclamation marks. She recently explained those and he is all about "excited writing" and uses them everywhere.
Reading wise, he was assessed as advanced and as far as they are allowed to do for a Kindergarten child. I spied on the form and it showed him at a mid 2nd grade level, but they are not allowed to put him that far. He is going to be in an advanced reading group in 1st grade, starting next Tuesday. He will go for a half hour every day for this, and the books he will be reading will be level 10. I told him about it earlier and he is beyond excited. The books he reads here are level 1's and 2's, and they are very simple to him. I'm getting him a bunch of level 3's for christmas, but these are a different type of level books that he will be using at school. So when he hears the level 10, he is super excited because he's "never seen level 10's before!"
She says not only is he reading without mistakes at the level they are putting him, but he fully comprehends it as well. I'm very excited for him to start next week and to hear how he does.
I also met with the 1st grade teacher that will be working with him, and the principal to discuss the reading group switch. Everyone was really great and act like they truly care.
So overall, she says he is very social, listens without any drama at all, and is a "very cool kid" and she loves to work with him. So I'm finally reassured that waiting was best because last year would have been harder for him to sit and listen like this. He has calmed down a lot and truly loves school.
AND, the counselor is going to be contacting me because they can talk to him and try to figure out what is stressing him out or making him have these sleep issues. He still has the sleepwalking/night terrors a few times a week. I explained that it didn't start after our move right away. It was within a few weeks of school starting that it started and I just feel like he needs to talk to someone so we can see how to help with this. If that can be done with the one from school that he already knows, then great. Otherwise, he has an appt in December for his 6 year check up, and we can talk about a referral to someone then.
All of this was great news and I can finally feel happy about school.
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