Many 3rd graders are overwhelmed this year with the big spelling words and 5 pages of worksheets to study for tests. One Mom came up to me and said how hard it was for her son. I really like this Mom. She was quizzing me on what my DS was doing and how long it was taking. I tried to avoid it and then just said you shouldn't compare to him. She became insulted and said she had a smart boy too. I felt so bad. I did not mean that at all.
The same conversation a few days later with another Mom I handled differently. I just said yes it's feels like too much. But for my DS it just feels like a lot of too much busy work not challenging learning. Misery loves company not someone showing them up. This felt better like we connected instead of disconnect. But it also felt like a little lie.
One of GD5's Kindergarten classmates rides the bus with her and I asked her Mom how her daughter was doing with the amount of writing homework they were getting every night. She started telling me that she wished they would just work on learning their letters and sounds and not try to read or write words yet. She said her daughter can't remember sight words like "and". I wished I had never brought up the subject. I just said oh, GD doesn't really mind the words - just having to write so much. What I didn't say is that GD knew Dolche Sight Words through 3rd grade when she was 4 and has been reading since she was 3.
We will be spending Christmas with GD's 3 cousins, two are her age and one is a year younger. None of them are reading yet except the one in Kindergarten knows a few sight words. The family all knows GD can read because wherever they go together, GD is always reading the Kid's Meal Box or playground meals or something around them. But it seems to upset them if I talk about her abilites, so I don't bring it up. Luckily there will be so much going on Christmas Day that it shouldn't be an issue then - it's more in small group gatherings where problems arise.
The cousin who is one week older than GD wrote GD a little note the other day and GD looked at it and said "what's this?" Cousin had wrote a few letters to represent words and just said to GD, "never mind" just take it. These 2 are good friends as long as academics don't come up.
