... DD4... full day kindergarten... "Mommy they don't teach anything at school."... first parent teacher night in a couple of weeks and I'm at a loss as to what to do.
In preparation for your meeting you may wish to construct a list or inventory of your kiddo's skills and accomplishments to-date, including a list of books she has read. You may want to look up the lexile or reading level of the books, or count the unique words (vocabulary) in the books if they are very simple books and a reading level is not found for them.
Keeping a log or journal and creating an annual inventory provides you with ongoing documentation, which may prove helpful to you somewhere along the way... in assessing continued growth, plateauing, or correctly communicating how many years ago your child mastered what is being offered in the current year curriculum.
At the meeting you may wish to
- provide a copy of the inventory to the teacher so s/he has a factual basis to understand your child's academic/intellectual development and interests.
- inquire as to the planned curriculum to the end of the year, and work together to see if there are any areas which may be new for your child.
- learn if there are other children with a similar level of readiness/ability as your child, with whom she could be grouped. This provides a benefit to the children and to the parents as well: Strength in numbers.
- partner with the school, and possibly plan to form a team to meet and discuss identifying appropriate curriculum for your daughter (and possibly for the cluster group as a whole)... is it level 1... level 2... some combination of both... etc?
The Davidson Database has articles on parent-teacher conferences. Resources such as those by
Karen B Rogers PhD may also prove valuable.
