What exactly DO I want to hear at parent teacher conference?
I had Ashlynn’s Fall parent-teacher conference for this, her last year of Pre-K. The teacher gave me a HUGE packet for Pre-school standards for my review, and said she didn’t need to go through all of it.
Um…okay.
She showed me a picture Ashlynn had drawn the first day of school of a person with her name on the paper, and then another current picture of a person with her name on it. There was improvement in both. Okay…..cool.
Then she said she had an idea to work on the morning routine. Every morning the kids are to complete a series of 4 steps before the parents leave. 1.) Hang up Coat 2.) Wash Hands 3.) Check in 4.) Write name.
Despite three months of doing the same thing, Ashlynn always comes in, gets distracted, and needs physical prompts to do each one. She seems absolutely oblivious to verbal prompting. It’s not ignoring either. She is just so engrossed in what the other kids are doing, she loses focus.
So,back to the teacher’s idea. She wants me to physically take her to each station instead of verbally prompting her, to hopefully just get Ashlynn successfully completing the routine, and then we can add language.
Ok….not a problem.
She seemed relieved I agreed. I mean, honestly, I’m not too wrapped up in the routine. I need to know if my baby is making progress. Is she going to be ready for Kindergarten? What do I need to be doing at home?
She really couldn’t pinpoint one thing. Just kinda said Ashlynn is getting a lot of services to try and catch her up.
She did say Ashlynn is engaging in collaborative (not just parallel) play, and is using her imagination to make up things.
Okay….that’s good.
Oh, and then she said she usually has the kids change seats on the carpet, but she thinks it would be best to keep Ashlynn in the front so she’s not as distracted.
Okay…sounds good. She should be getting preferential seating per her IEP, so…. I mean….how is my baby really doing?
Sigh.
I don’t know what I want. The whole thing was underwhelming. No rave reviews, but then no suggestions on how to help her.
Not at that meeting anyway. I gleaned plenty when I finally had a chance to read through the skill sets.
Let me just pick one out here:
Early Literacy Skills Assessment:
Out of 14 pre-literacy skills, Ashlynn has four boxes checked. 🙁
Damnit.
FOUR!!! out of FOURTEEN!!!
It makes me want to cry. Nevermind, I am crying now. It’s not fair.
So, I’m going to tackle those skills. Comprehension, Phonological Awareness, Alphabetic Principle, and Concepts about Print.
That’s just reading FYI
Cody is going to tackle the math part….and that’s a whole other list of checks she doesn’t have that I just can’t bear to look at again. Thank God my husband is amazing and helps lift some of the burden.
Stupid Apraxia. Stupid Apraxia. I hate apraxia. I hate this damn disorder. I HATE IT. I HATE IT.
Okay, tantrum over. Put on your big girl panties Laura. You don’t see Ashlynn crying about all the work there is to do. In fact, she’s looking at your right now with alphabet cards in hand ready to learn.
Alright bug, bug. We haven’t come this far to raise our white flag yet. Like I said in my post at the beginning of the year, “Bring it on. We’re going to give it everything we got.”
