If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It

That's definitely not the kind of grammar you want to hear from a homeschooling parent, but it is an apt summation of the advice given to me by the "specialist" who conducted the kids' narrative assessments yesterday. What a relief!

I do not usually expound on this topic and this will likely be the ONLY time I do so on this blog, but using the assessments as a reference point, I have some things I'd like to say. First and foremost, I don't brag on my kids nearly enough when it comes to their "smarts." No, I take that back--I brag about Mr. Smarty-Pants Sawyer all the time. I admit it. But trust me, his day his coming . . . the day when I clam up for fear that any "bragging" I do will be perceived by others as my thinking that my kids are "smarter" than other kids or that they are getting a better education than other kids their age. The truth is, I honestly don't sit around and think those things (that they are smarter or are better-educated), and it's because I really have no one to compare them to. That is, I don't approach friends at church who have children of similar ages and ask them how their children are doing in school, whether their kids can recite the dates of the American Revolution or the Civil War, if they can describe a molecule in minute detail, or whether or not they're able to diagram a sentence. All I have are expectations of my own children that I have developed somewhere along the line and which change with each passing year and each successive school grade.

This is where Dr. Holinga comes in. She is a Reading Specialist and has a doctorate from The Ohio State University in Developmental Reading, Curriculum, and Professional Development. She currently owns and operates her own business called The Reading Doctor, Inc. where she works full-time tutoring children with reading disabilities and counseling homeschool families in curriculum development. She has conducted the kids' assessments for the last few years but because of the enormously high volume of assessments she does each year (700+), she cannot possibly remember each and every child's individual strengths; in fact, it is the weaknesses that stand out to her, and with good reason. For example, she will always remember that Tyler had vision problems when he first came to her, and she will recall that when Peyton learned to read several years ago, she was unable to make it through a sentence without running out of breath!

So it is with extreme pleasure that I sit across the table from her year after year and listen to her rhapsodize about how well the kids are progressing, how they are doing impossibly complicated or advanced work and are obviously excelling in all areas. She always seems blown away by the books the kids are reading, their spelling abilities, the improvement in their creative writing as well as just their ability to write well; in short, she said, "Just keep doing what you're doing!"

But here's the thing: As blown away as she is that they're reading and writing better than most high schoolers (see now why I never brag??), I take all of those things for granted. I teach them what I think they need to know and expect them to catch on. I don't look at their papers and marvel at the difficulty of the language they use or at their proper spelling. I've grown accustomed to it. As a matter of fact, I'll take it one step further. I would be disappointed and feel that I hadn't done my job well if they WEREN'T performing as they are now. As I say, I have no one to compare them to. But I definitely left Dr. Holinga's office yesterday with an extra-bouncy spring in my step, and it wasn't because it finally stopped snowing! No, it was because Dr. Holinga convinced me (until next year, by which time this feeling will have worn off) that not only are the kids excelling BIG TIME but that there are several "extras" we've been doing that we have absolutely no need for and which I may feel comfortable dropping immediately.

I cannot begin to describe the relief I feel, knowing that those 2-3 "dropped" supplemental activities will buy us time to finally do other things we've wanted to do for so long--art classes, perhaps a musical instrument, wrestling . . . well, that's mostly for Sawyer. No, I'm just kidding. Do they even offer wrestling for three-year-olds? I have registered him for gymnastics beginning in June and cannot wait to see him in a leotard. NO! I'm kidding again! About the leotard, not the gymnastics class. He'll be taking "Polar Bears for Boys" (the girls are in Koalas now--catch the theme?) and I know he's going to have a blast. The girls' first class of the new cycle started last night and since Randy was at Men's Group, I needed to bring the boys along. The instructor was not using the parallel bars last night so we were sitting on a mat directly to the right of them. Even though I don't think they use the parallel bars in the three-year-old class, Sawyer is good to go if they do! He was making like a monkey last night and swinging away. Oh, he is in such an animal phase right now!

About a week ago he was a tiger every morning when he got up. I don't mean he woke up on the wrong side of the bed; I mean he would get up, run to his door and knock on it (his signal that he's ready to begin the day), then crouch down underneath his pony and pounce when I would enter his room. The first day he did that he really did scare me! I am used to him burrowing under his covers, pretending to hide, and I always humor him by calling his name, pretending not to know where he is, even going so far as to sit on him while wondering aloud, "I wonder where Sawyer could be?!" But picture one of those "life-size" stuffed ponies that is just the right size for a three-year-old to ride on (and apparently to fit under) and you'd be a little freaked out too, if you walked in expecting to see a little roly-poly bunched up under a blanket and instead saw from your peripheral vision a "tiger" leaping out at you!

Today he was a "cow," and every time he used the bathroom he insisted that he was "peeing milk." Enjoy your breakfast!