Adeline's conference was on the heels of her admissions visit to West Chester Friends School. We have decided to put her through the process in hopes that they accept her. The public Kindergarten program is just too crazy. Fast and chaotic. It is center based and the kids are moving through the classroom and racing through their center projects as fast as they can. This will not be good for Adeline.
After laying out all of my concerns to Adeline's teacher, we worked down a list of Adeline's strengths and weaknesses so that I could make an informed decision about next year.
Adeline's teacher thinks she is bright. She retains information and gives it back to you with full understanding and detail. She GETS IT! She is sweet and well behaved. Adeline loves to learn. She LOVES school. Her determination deserves a medal. It really does. I could go on and on. . .
Adeline has two areas of weakness - attention and fine motor skills. She is a quite kid who doesn't move around a lot so she can fool you and make you think that she is completing whatever is asked of her. Often, she is looking at her work but processing the noise or activity around her. Adeline often needs LOTS prompting to complete her tasks. This will not work well in a centers based classroom; centers that are manned by parents! Adeline's fine motor skills are very behind. She is incredibly weak in this department. This slows her down and will hold her far behind the pace of her peers in Kindergarten. Hopefully, WCFS will accept her. So far the class only has eight kids enrolled. Instruction can be individualized! Public school sends Lila home with loads of worksheets each day. WCFS rarely sent Savannah home with worksheets. They DO when they learn. Adeline has a greater chance of success if she is grouping popsicle sticks as opposed to cutting and pasting the right number by the right number of objects on a worksheet.
Adeline's fine motor skills have me concerned. Her brain is so far ahead of her hands that I wonder if they will ever align. She has a hard time counting objects because her eyes and her brain have moved passed where her fingers are pointing. Her letters are still two to three inches high and some letters she just can't make. I worry about her writing when she is in First and Second grade. Will her hands still be so slow? There is no chance that typing will be better. Adeline can't isolate all of her fingers. She still can't make a peace sign. Typing is a loooong way out.
The silver lining. . . all of her teachers adore her. They admire her smiling face and happy spirit. I was told that she will try anything they ask of her, and what they ask her to do is hard and tiring. She gladly takes on the challenge. Adeline is smart. She reads--without having gone to Kindergarten and is already identifying problems and solutions in stories and which stories are fact and fiction (she can support her answers too - the teacher in me loves it!). Adeline willingly writes and has recently written a wonderful story about an astronaut (we do all of this at home, her school is not an academic setting). My little girl is kind, fun, and seems to draw people to her. Those people quickly become Adeline fans. Miss Adeline has quite a large cheering section. As well she should. If you spend large amounts of time with this girl, you can't help be inspired by all that she is and how far she has come.
Lets just hope that she lands in the right Kindergarten classroom next year and that her teacher joins her fan club.
This girl makes my heart so happy! What a gift it is to be her "Mama."
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