I mentioned in yesterday’s post how I emailed CG’s teacher about the
awful reading scores she received back this week. Â I got a nice
response from her teacher this morning. Â Apparently the specific test
she took was a timed test, and CG stepped away to go the bathroom
during the testing period. Â Since the test timed how long a child
takes to finish the test, those 5-6 minutes going to the bathroom
skewed her score a bit. Â That’s slightly comforting. Â Only slightly. She also said that she has CG’s scores from end-of-1st-grade testing
and that at the end of the year CG scored appropriately for moving
onto 2nd grade. Â She assured me that she would conduct another
assessment with CG in the next week or so and let me know the results. Despite my hatred for sight reading of any kind, she said that she is
a firm believer in teaching both sight words and phonics together as
part of a balanced literacy approach. Â Color me highly skeptical. Lastly, she’s going to talk to the librarian at their school about not
allowing children to check out books that are above their tested
reading levels. Â This week CG brought home two books more appropriate
for 4th-5th graders. Â The teacher assured me that she’ll have her
students take their reading level information to the library and ask
that the librarian doublecheck upon checkout to ensure the children
are getting appropriate books. So that’s that. Â We’ll continue to work with CG at home to improve her
reading. Â I went through her bookcase last night and pulled out the
handful that I felt were at her current reading capabilities. Â Sadly,
there weren’t many (about half a dozen out of approximately 200
books). Â With any luck we’ll be able to turn CG from The Girl Who
Hated Reading into at least The Girl Who Begrudgingly Enjoyed It Every
Now and Again.
awful reading scores she received back this week. Â I got a nice
response from her teacher this morning. Â Apparently the specific test
she took was a timed test, and CG stepped away to go the bathroom
during the testing period. Â Since the test timed how long a child
takes to finish the test, those 5-6 minutes going to the bathroom
skewed her score a bit. Â That’s slightly comforting. Â Only slightly. She also said that she has CG’s scores from end-of-1st-grade testing
and that at the end of the year CG scored appropriately for moving
onto 2nd grade. Â She assured me that she would conduct another
assessment with CG in the next week or so and let me know the results. Despite my hatred for sight reading of any kind, she said that she is
a firm believer in teaching both sight words and phonics together as
part of a balanced literacy approach. Â Color me highly skeptical. Lastly, she’s going to talk to the librarian at their school about not
allowing children to check out books that are above their tested
reading levels. Â This week CG brought home two books more appropriate
for 4th-5th graders. Â The teacher assured me that she’ll have her
students take their reading level information to the library and ask
that the librarian doublecheck upon checkout to ensure the children
are getting appropriate books. So that’s that. Â We’ll continue to work with CG at home to improve her
reading. Â I went through her bookcase last night and pulled out the
handful that I felt were at her current reading capabilities. Â Sadly,
there weren’t many (about half a dozen out of approximately 200
books). Â With any luck we’ll be able to turn CG from The Girl Who
Hated Reading into at least The Girl Who Begrudgingly Enjoyed It Every
Now and Again.
Let me know what type of books she’d be interested in and appropriate for her level and I’ll see what I can do to help send some your way.
Just to reassure you – I hated reading for a time. Turned out I had a slight comprehension problem that was discovered in 6th grade. One quarter or semester of remedial reading help fixed it and a dedicated teacher who was determined to see me read, and shortly after that I started reading voraciously again.