And all I can say is that I am so glad he will also be spending his afternoons in the 1st grade class as well. Sometimes I forgot how different DS5 and when he gets near his peers it is painfully obvious. Our orientation had 4 students in it, including DS. The teacher asked each child to find their name--all the kids were successful. Then she asked them to sit with a parent a fill out a little hand with 5 questions (Birthday, favorite color, hobby, pets, favorite food). DS5 read the whole thing himself and printed out all his own answers. I helped him by telling him that there were two Ls in the word yellow and that he could abbreviate the word December for his birthday. Handwriting was really good too (I was a little surprise since he hates to write). The other 3 children were no where close to my son. One wrote the letters as her mom spelled and the other two children wrote their name only. The parent did the rest after it was clear the kids couldn't write letters.
When the kids looked around the room DS5 read EVERY word in the room. The teacher looked over at his as he read off the big list of sight words on a poster board. She said, "Oh, he knows ALL the sight words already?" I felt quite embarrassed as the other parents looked at my son. The teacher also told everyone that the reading program starts after January. After the other parents were leaving I did give the teacher a copy of his test results and we discussed the transition of him physically getting to the 1st grade class each day when K ends.
Then we went up to the 1st grade class. The teacher was very welcoming. DS5 even was excited to see a child who was in his summer camp program this summer. The teacher introduced DS5 to the rest of the class stating that starting next Monday he would be coming to the class every day starting at 11am. The other kids look interested and everyone smiled at him. I also found out that when he gets to the class the only major thing he would have missed in the morning was the reading groups. The first thing he would do on arrival to class would be math.
My son is really looking forward to going back on Monday. Please cross your fingers for us. I truly want to make this public school attempt successful.
