Parent teacher conference

Matt and I had our first parent teacher conference this morning since the first six weeks has come to a close. We got to see Caroline's first report card which was PERFECT! She mastered all the skills for the six weeks and had no behavior problems. Mrs B said she is by far the top in the class and is just a pleasure to teach. She said Caroline sits next to a little girl that has not had any preschool and Caroline has done a great job helping her catch up to the rest of the class. She said she is a leader in her class too, which is so great to hear. One of the things the preschool teacher last year mentioned was that Caroline never stepped up to take charge. We were also told last year that she would not raise her hand when the teachers asked the class a question. Well I've talked to her teacher about that already and she said she's always raising her hand to answer questions. I told Mrs B that I know the day Caroline gets a mark she'll come home in tears. She said that she highly doubts Caroline will ever get a mark since they get 3 warnings.

She said as far as reading, by the end of the year they should all be reading at a Level 2 and they would be ecstatic if the kids were at a Level 4. She thinks Caroline is already at a Level 2 if not a Level 4. They mentioned at the Kindergarten Curriculum meeting that they don't officially assess reading in K until December though so we'll have to wait to know for sure. I don't know what level it correlates to on their scale, but we just opened up the set 3 of her BOB books last night and she read the first one all the way through with very little help. The teacher showed us the page she used to check reading and it was a page of 20-30 words and she said Caroline almost made it through the whole list. She said she might have been able to get all the words, but the testing is done during Centers (play time) so the kids always want to get done to go play. She does plan on giving Caroline some more difficult books to read instead of the ones they would normally bring home. While we want to keep her challenged we don't want that to mean just more busy work.

We saw the over all assessment they did the 2nd week of school and Caroline scored an 86%. I thought that was pretty good until the teacher said a 30% is considered great for the beginning of the year. The things she missed she should have no problems accomplishing them by the end of the year. They will repeat this assessment again in the middle of the year and again at the end.

Overall I think it was a great meeting and I feel really good about her start in school.

And a shout out to Aunt Anne for letting Caroline hang with them while waiting for the bus this morning.