Kyle split his kindergarten year between two different schools last year because of our move to Columbia County and after the move, the homework situation went downhill. The only homework he ever had was reading and sight words from these incredibly boring black & white "Jack & Jilly" readers that pretty much made ME want to poke MY eyes out. We struggled nightly to get Kyle to move through the stories and practice the sight words. We tried everything we could think of to sweeten the homework pot...to make it less annoying for all of us.
What a difference first grade makes! He has spelling and vocabulary words to work on, math worksheets to do, and has this awesome reader with colorful illustrations and helpful follow-up questions for parents. Kyle always chooses to do the math homework first (weirdo!...okay, I only say that since I'm a math dyslexic) and doesn't even complain that much about having to write the spelling words three times each. BUT what I can't believe is how much more excited he is about reading! They still have the horrid Jack & Jilly readers, but they stay at school to work on during group time. Kyle is truly becoming a reader and it blows me away. He's supposed to read to us for 15 minutes every night and it flies by - he's getting into the cliffhanger and is starting to understand that reading is a way of putting your imagination into words. I find myself getting ready to help him sound out what I would consider a difficult word and he breezes through it...that little stinker knows a lot more words than I ever gave him credit for!
Our friend, Reid, who will be 13 soon, is kind of my inspiration when it comes to reading to Kyle and allowing him to be more artistic. Reid wrote this series of books when Kyle was a baby and the main character was named "Kyle" - they had these great illustrations to go with them and I just remember Reid's pride when I would come over and he would show me a new "Kyle" book. I know boys get such a bum wrap sometimes whether it's because they have "ants in the pants" or are too boisterous - but there are a lot of great boys out there (including my own) and I'm going to try and be more mindful of finding something positive about them all!
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
You Read to Me and I'll Read to You!
Posted by LoriAnn at 9/04/2007 08:32:00 PM
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2 comments:
Hey Nebraska Belle - thanks for the comment! You hit the nail on the head about high school football being the place to be in small towns. I think I could do a whole post on just that.
Homework time. In 1st grade. The thought of it overwhelms me! Good luck.
I'm so glad that Kyle is reading! That's great. It's funny how kids can be so different. As you know, Reid was breezing through books at that age, and Hannah is just now able to read the "Magic Treehouse" without help - and she's in fourth grade. I was so worried about Hannah, but I've been really surprised recently her fluency has shot up and her speed has come up a notch or two. You know she'll never win the speed reading prize - (or speed talking - it's still painful to get through her stories sometimes).
I still can't believe that I was reading The Lord of the Rings trilogy to Reid when he was Kyle's age. He is an amazing kid. He's latest thing is he wants to make funny videos with his best friend Joe and post them on Utube. Joe's mom is completely against it. She said, "They'll find out where you live."
I'm not sure who they are or what difference it would make.
Reid said, "would you rather have me and Joe playing video games or doing something creative?"
I told him to go for it - as far as two kids without a video camera or any skills on making movies can go!
Joe is our new adopted son. He lives as much at our house as his own. He's a nice kid. He played for several years on Reid's soccer team but quit - just not interested anymore. His mom is from Japan and she keeps him extremely scheduled with music lessons, tennis and karate (he was a black belt at 12).
Joe transfered to Landon to go to school with Reid. They are having a ball. The best part is Joe's mom picks them both up after school and often takes Reid home with her -where she insists that they do homework immediately. At our house, I say have some cookies and 30-60 minutes of Cartoon Network THEN do your homework.
Talk about homework, Reid and Hannah's backpacks can get so HEAVY - just two textbooks and the required 1 inch binder for each subject really adds a lot of weight
Reid said he has an "evil English teacher" who gives WAY too much hoemwork. I have to agree. She gives 6 worksheet-packets about every three days on vocab and grammar. LOTS of Repetition. And then she makes them copy 20-30 sentences for comma placement and end marks.
To add insult to injury, one of Reid's 8th grade buddies (a classroom helper in Ms. Evil's class) said, "I graded your paper yesterday." Reid was so mad, "She doesn't even GRADE them!"
I'm glad our kids are more math minded than we are. I think I've passed my capacity to help with their homework already. Thankfully, neither one seems to need it.
Well, off to a soccer tournament today - and Hannah has a game here. Busy day.
Talk to you later.
Heather
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