Last Day of School

It's hard to believe Elsa's kindergarten year is already over.

She has learned so much this year. She went from having just a few sight words at the beginning of the year, to reading full-on chapter books on her own by the end of the year. At our final parent-teacher conferences, Mrs. Nelson said Elsa tested at the second-highest reading level they test for. Apparently she didn't bother testing Elsa at the highest reading level, because she thought Elsa would probably pass that one too, and this way it "gives her somewhere to go." Um, okay. Welcome to the world of standardized educational testing/benchmarks, I guess?

It seems like a dramatic change since the start of the year, but I thought this is probably what would happen—at some point it would just click for her, and then there wouldn't be any learning curve at all, she would just suddenly be able to read everything. And that's pretty much exactly how it went. I think it all comes down to the fact that she just wasn't very motivated to read on her own before this. Now, with it being such a huge priority in kindergarten, she's not only figured it out, she's learned that reading on her own is actually a lot of fun and a great way to entertain herself.

In fact, Elsa has been devouring chapter books lately. She's been going through the Puppy Place books at the rate of one every couple of days. Now that school is done, I've been letting her stay up later, reading on her own before bed. I kind of miss the days when I cuddled with her in bed while reading to her, but I know this is what she needs to do!

We really liked Elsa's teacher this year, Mrs. Nelson. As you might remember from this post, I wasn't sure how Elsa would react to Mrs. Nelson, since she's such a straight-forward, no-nonsense person who doesn't talk down to the kids. There's not a whole lot of lovey-doveyness going on in Mrs. Nelson's classroom, and since Elsa is such a people-pleaser, I thought she might have a hard time with a teacher who didn't give her the over-the-top praise that she was used to from her preschool teachers. Fortunately, Elsa ended up doing just fine with Mrs. Nelson's teaching style. And apparently she's more resilient than I thought!

I've had a lot of other parents ask me about Mrs. Nelson, and I suspect some really don't care for her. She tells it like it is—you know you'll get an honest assessment of your kid from Mrs. Nelson. And I think, after more than 30 years teaching kindergartners, she's probably lost all inclination to beat around the bush or be diplomatic. I had one other mom tell me that Mrs. Nelson point-blank told her that her son "wasn't special or a stand-out." Ouch! Of course, I think some parents might need to be told their kids aren't that special. : ) On the other hand, that's easy for me to say, considering that Mrs. Nelson told me that Elsa is very special. LOL. Mrs. Nelson was especially impressed with Elsa's drawing abilities—she told me she was intimidated to draw anything on the board for the kids because she knew Elsa was probably thinking how much better she could have done it. : )

We're looking forward to next fall and first grade at Donges Bay!