Shaling Gave Her First Speech Today

Over the last few weeks, Shaling had to work on a book report on a biography. Her report, which included a variety of activities, such as creating a timeline, drawing pictures, finding pictures, and writing out information, was on Mia Hamm. It culminated in her giving a speech on Mia Hamm at school today.

She apparently understood the idea of having props during the speech, because she asked me last night if she could ask one of our neighbors (Mady Schmidt) if she could borrow a soccer ball. Then, last night, she began planning her outfit for today. She dug out a t-shirt that I'd forgotten she even had. It was from when she attended a one week soccer camp last June!

To be honest, Brock did most of the work involved in preparing the speech, but he invested a large amount of time in having Shaling practice giving it, gently correcting her in pronunciation, etc. She balked at having to repeatedly read it, but begrudingly did so.

Well, I just got an email from Shaling's teacher on another topic, but she included this:

"Just wanted to let you know Shaling did a wonderful job today presenting as Mia Hamm. I couldn't believe how well she read!!! She seemed very proud of herself!!!"

She hasn't even been home quite 14 months yet. Heck, at the beginning of this very school year, I never would have guessed her to have the vocabulary & reading skills to pull this off. Her language progress milestones may not come as frequently or seem as obvious as they once did, but she continues to amaze me.

Last week, she had an assignment that involved jumbled sentences, such as:

barked brown The loudly dog

She had roughly seven or eight of them. She correctly reordered all but two of them. The two I had to help her correct only had one word out of place. It is hard to explain just how difficult it is for her to learn grammar, as Chinese is not Latin-based, so there is virtually nothing similar about the languages. When I slow to fathom just all she has accomplished in the short time we've had her, I am quite inspired.