My daughter is in a half day kindergarten program and as someone who is pro- teachers deserve the world and pro-hold parents accountable, I am truly over her teacher this year.
I am fortunate to live in a great school district that tests well compared to state average and so when my daughters teacher told me at our last conference she was “falling behind” compared to her peers in phonemic awareness and reading I took that pretty seriously.
I cut out all tablet time during the week (weekends only and only if we’re even home to do so), she already was not allowed to watch YouTube, I started a rule that she could not have TV until after 3 pm (since full day school this would be the case anyway) and it held us both to a higher standard for her learning at home. Once she gets home at 12 we spend most of our time working on subjects she struggles with, reading, playing combined with learning and phonics.
The thing is….I never felt as if she was behind. Perhaps just average.. before this she made great effort to sound out words, and would sometimes mix up vowel sounds but nothing alarming. We read to her every night and frequent our local library. Shes one of the youngest in her class as most of her classmates are 6 but she won’t be until the last week of school. I reached out countless times to her teacher for extra work, feedback on the activities I created at home, resources etc and never received any response.
Finally, I mentioned to her play therapist all of the concern and worry this has caused. I am struggling with letting her make mistakes and just be a kid with fear of her “ falling behind“. My daughter is now reading early learner books pretty much independently because we’ve been at it non stop for weeks. But I don’t think she’s comprehending them any better. Her therapist assured me a lot of kids don’t start reading independently or reading comprehension until between 6-7. I asked around and read posts and realized most people say the same thing.
Now i feel as if I pushed my daughter too hard and was too strict that she won’t enjoy reading or learning. I didn’t even look for other opinions when her teacher told me she was falling behind, I just assumed it was on me to fix It and help my daughter. It’s great that my daughter has taken a leap in her skills but I fear she’s on the verge of being burnt out and missing out on the fun things we used to fill our day with that weren’t all learning based.
I’m only upset with her teacher because she made it seem like my daughter was behind and not ready for 1st grade (she said this) but I think now she was perfectly on track for her own pace even if her peers were excelling quicker. This seems like a silly thing to complain about but I genuinely don’t understand why she would evaluate my daughter that way and then never follow-up with me when I was reaching out or why she never mentioned it before our conference (her lack of home connection is my biggest problem with her) or why she didn’t assure me that even if she was falling behind compared to her classmates she wasn’t falling behind the average age children start learning/mastering these skills.