Back to School Night

Back to School Night was on Tuesday.  We're veterans of sorts, having been through one of these last year when Matt first went to kindergarten, but it's still very different when you have two kids in school, two sets of teachers to talk to, two classrooms to explore.

A week ago, Matt brought home a letter indicating that he was eligible for Title 1 reading.  I was completely caught off guard by this; on the home front, Matt comes across as a strong reader and if there were signs that he was having a hard time, I either did not recognize them, or I dismissed them simply because he is a six-year old child and I did not understand the expectations that schools have for first graders.

When the letter first came home, I immediately reached out to the Title 1 reading teacher.  In our conversations, I learned that Matt struggles with words he does not recognize.  I know this about him, I've seen him come to difficult words in books that we've read together and complain that 'it's too hard'.  So I help him sound it out letter by letter, ultimately giving the answer rather than letting him work through it on his own.  Now I know that I am doing him no favors... and in just a week of 'Reading Club' I already see him working through those unknown words.

At Back to School Night, we had a chance to meet the Title 1 reading teacher and she's a lovely woman.  Many, many years of experience.  And she clearly loves what she does.

I spoke with Matt's first grade teacher.  She tells me that both she and Mrs. Lago (the reading teacher) believe Matt likely just needs a little boost to start the year and that he's unlikely to spend too much time in 'Reading Club'.  She also tells me that he talks.  A lot.  He's a very social kid.  I cannot say that I am surprised by this at all; I've been hearing that about Matt since he starting talking.  

In many ways, this makes him the complete opposite of his sister.  She is quiet.  She's hesitant to express herself with people she doesn't know.  But slowly, she's warming up. 

After our tour of Matt's classroom, a look through his desk and the various workbooks he's been using the last few weeks, and feeling quite proud of my little boy, we walked down the hallway to Cathy's kindergarten class.

Cathy has the same teacher that Matt had last year (Mrs. Bruening) and she's just wonderful with this age group.  We were given a paper to help Cathy lead us on our tour of the classroom and she was a terrific tour guide.  Mrs. Bruening shared with us that Cathy is starting to talk more in class, she's becoming a little easier to understand.  And so I reminded her of the conversation we had the first day of school when I suggested that she was going to have to work much harder to get Cathy to talk in class than she ever had to with Matt. 

I had the best conversation of the night with Mrs. Bruening's student intern - a Penn State student who will be with the kids through the entire school year (even though she'll graduate a month before she completes her student teaching experience).  Miss Bamer told me that Cathy was her favorite student in the classroom, something I suggested in jest that she must have said to all the parents at Back to School Night.  But she very sincerely told me that she hadn't.  That she enjoys Cathy so much because with everything she has seen Cathy do over the first three weeks of school, there is pure joy on her face.

And that sums up my little girl so perfectly.  She finds joy in everything, everything.  What a lucky girl!