Monday, November 24, 2008

A Jonathan post

So we've had one week in the new kindergarten/daycare, and we are all very happy. Monday through Thursday Jonathan went to the quiet blue school across the valley, then was picked up after lunch and driven back to the preschool where I work, where he has been going afternoons. Friday Jonathan stayed all afternoon at the new school, and went to kindergarten there with the older children. I asked him afterwords how it went. He said he "really really liked it." That's two really's. What a huge relief. I actually don't know if I am allowed to be relieved yet or if I need to give it a few more weeks and still ask about really really's. But I am still optimistic that all will be well.

Now that we know Jonathan is a reader, we've tried to do more to encourage that. We picked out some library books yesterday from the "early reader" section. The books were color coded to indicate reading level. Red was early beginning, purple medium, and yellow more advanced. Well in my own oh-so-humble opinion, the red books were really boring. We got a couple purple, but I found the books I liked had yellow stickers. Books like "Frog and Toad are Friends", and "Green Eggs and Ham", and "The Giving Tree." So those are the books we checked out.

Last night Jonathan started reading "The Giving Tree" to me, and he was getting most of the words -- until about the middle of the book when there is a whole page of words. Then Jonathan got tired and asked me to finish it. Even so, while he read I kept stopping and flipping the book over and saying "Wait a second -- this is a YELLOW book! You are not supposed to be able to read this!" Jonathan would laugh and keep reading more.

Daddy was away watching football (more on that later). First thing this morning Jonathan wanted to show Daddy how he could read the yellow book. This time he read "The Giving Tree" from start to end.

We are very proud of our little reader. While he likes reading, and is excited about it, we'll keep him reading.

So summary: very happy with the new school. Very happy Jonathan is in kindergarten at the new school. He is tall enough to be in kindergarten, and he is apparently reading at least at a kindergarten level. I don't know how much progress we've made socially in the last week, but the new teacher is aware of our concerns and believes he will become good friends with the other children. You have my permission to feel relieved, at least until I tell you otherwise.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

"Frog and Toad" are the greatest! So cool that your child reads! Ours were like that. One of ours read above the level, so, lovely day, her teacher had her read whatever she wanted and write about the book for homework, instead of the alphabet worksheets most of the class did. Very cool and so lucky to have a teacher who recognized the levels of all of her students and worked with it. (Just getting caught up on your blog! Fun things! Love the recipe book and how everything has to cook for something like 7 degrees for 6 minutes. Your boy was the closest to real cooking, I think.)