It's been awhile since I've written. I have been doing my best to keep up with school homework for my kids, which is never tailored to their specific needs, but instead keep us from getting to those areas.
Regarding the title above, I just discovered tonight that my daughter's teacher left me a note in the homework book that I must sign every night to verify that I did my job in forcing my daughter to do all the homework. The note, which my daughter could have read herself, btw, asked for a meeting with my regarding my daughter's lack of effort in having neat handwriting. The teacher further requested that I bring my daughter along to sit in on the meeting.
Regardless of intent, this to me seems like a way to shame a child who is not even 8 years old yet, and over something really truly minor. Overall, her handwriting is not perfect, but it is usually legible.
So, I wrote and told the teacher that I did not think it was a good idea to have such a meeting with my daughter present - that I thought it would damage her self esteem. I also told her that I would work with my daughter if she would point out to me in a return email those particular weaknesses that I need to work on with her. Although I wanted to write that I felt such a meeting would only result in shame to my daughter, I toned it down to avoid conflict with the teacher as much as possible.
I'm so frustrated... I already have a tutor for my daughter who tutors her for her spelling and reading to make sure there are no holes left in my teaching, which I had to do because the school did not teach phonics in any significant way.
Then I received a comment about my daughter not doing well in daily oral language. I was just starting to think about how I was going to address this issue, when I got the report card and saw my daughter marked at below grade level because she hadn't passed enough of the timed math facts tests yet. And, now as I mentioned, it's all about the handwriting.
As for the daily oral language, I decided to do some research and found the following page which goes into the reasons why DOL is a terrible way to teach grammar.
http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/grammar_mechanics/why-daily-oral-language-d-o-l-doesnt-work/
As for the math, I'm all for memorizing the math facts. But I could swear I was told at parent teacher conferences that the grade requirement was test 4 by the end of the year. And when my daughter started studying test 4, I slowed own a bit to focus on other matters. My daughter just passed test 4 this Friday, and I have requested that the teacher give me copies of all the other required tests ASAP, so I can have my daughter study those too.
Then there's my son in kindergarten (just 5 1/2) who is doing fairly well in his reading. He can sound out words, and they have not yet pushed the bad techniques on him too heavily. But he doesn't like to write because he knows he can't spell, and his teacher wants him to be able to write a two page story by the end of the year. The kids get up in front of all of the parents at the end of the year and read their stories to the parents. I don't think even if my son wrote a story that he would actually agree to read it to a group of people. And, getting him to do any homework is like pulling teeth most nights - so there's not much hope for me to get him to do anything extra.
Eight weeks left...eight weeks left....
