More Language Growth

Shaling's reading and writing have both improved by leaps and bounds recently. It's funny how we don't realize our children are growing while it's occurring, but one day we're suddenly saying, "when did this happen?"

As you might expect, her reading comprehension is far below grade level. In fact for book projects most of this school year, she's used 1st grade level books and that has been challenging enough for her. For 4th quarter, she and Dad read a book closer to her grade level together (with Dad doing most of the reading, but Shaling following along).

For homework, we have to read the questions aloud to her and usually also have to reword them or explain what certain words mean. She had some Geography homework this week that had 8 or 10 questions on it. She was able to correctly read, comprehend, and answer 4 of them before requiring help from us. Furthermore, the help she required on the other questions was minimal. For example, she read to me, "if you are traveling from Oregon to Wyoming, which direction are you going?" I was across the room, fixing supper, so I broke it down into 3 parts as follows:

• Put a finger on Oregon
• Find Wyoming
• As your finger moves from Oregon to Wyoming, is it going North, South, East, or West?

I was amazed at how quickly she accomplished each step. She only hesitated on the third one, beginning to ask me which direction was North, but quickly recovered and did a "North, South, East, West" thing in her head and came up with the correct answer.

She's been making high marks on her spelling tests for a long time now, due in large part to the amount of time Dad spends drilling her on the words. This week was a rough one. Twenty words, all of which were lengthy and with multiple syllables. She struggled while studying at home and in fact, got the worst score (14) she's had in a long time on the practice test (which we administer at home). However, she scored a 20 out of 20 on the real thing! Way to go, girl!

Finally, she came home with a graded assignment (pictured below) that she insists she completed "all by herself" at school. From looking at it, I am assuming there was some guidance from the teacher. At a minimum, I'm certain there was a model assignment displayed for the kids. Despite that though, I am amazed at her writing and the minimal amount of grammar correction from the teacher. She amazes me.

Click on the picture to enlarge it.