Learning Something New

My Pen Mates,

I had tepid interest in going to my kindergartener's Parent-Teacher progress report meeting the other day. After all, I have two older kids who not only went to the same school, but had the same teacher! I would rather have gone on to meet with my sixth and eighth graders' teachers right away.

Now, Mrs. Drabin is probably the best teacher for a five year old anyone can run into. She's smart, even tempered, and very articulate. Her academic qualifications is bolstered by over twenty years of teaching early education as well as continuous credentialing programs mandated by both state and academic institutions.

Having gone through it twice before as mentioned, I didn't imagine that either Grace or I will have a lot of questions pertaining to how Lauren is doing. I mean, how many families with more than one child does not think that the youngest is the smartest of the brood? Constant exposure to older siblings induces precociousness with these kids; they learn to talk sooner, have better social skills, and generally more quick to pick up on stuff compared to the older ones. Imagine my surprise when Mrs. Drabin in her monotone mentions that we need to play closer attention to Lauren's reading learning! This about a girl who has started to read by herself, and who won't sleep until she's been read to two or three books each night!

After hearing about the lessons they go over in class and the screenings conducted on each child, I was perplexed to find myself unfamiliar with the format. Instead of emphasis on letters and words, the way they were being taught to read was by sound, such that when you read "cat", you don't note it as starting with the letter "c" but that the starting sound is "cuh". Table starts with "t" but the sound of the beginning letter is "tah". They were not even going through the abc's like you sing it; they go through it like "ah, buh, cuh, duh, uh, fuh, guh, etc." It's the new thing!

"When did you adapt this new system?" I inquired, and was informed that it was integrated five years ago (when Lica was in second grade). They say it complements the cognitive logic behind oral reading and helps them recognize words as well as develop speech skills. I wanted to protest that my girl has learned to read from her older siblings the old fashioned way. I really believed that this was a step back for her as she needed to learn a new system over what is already hardwired into her. I inquired about "sight words" and was told that those are still in play. I held myself back from commenting that these did not address pronunciation development.

Does this mean that my older ones are actually disadvantaged because they did not learn this "new and improved" system? A lot of thoughts cruised through my head, foremost was the disparate templates and would it serve to disorient and discourage my young one? I mean if she were a first born and starting from zero influence, it would have been a natural thing both for her and us her parents. But we knew the other system already worked__ twice! Now, not only do we have to learn this new thing, we actually have to hold our daughter back from what she's used to doing by slowing down her reading and breakdown words by beginning letter sound! My, how the world keeps getting complicated as I get older.

But I really should not worry so much of Lauren; she's a quick study and her young mind will adapt to anything. For the first few months of school however, it turns out that we have been exposing her to two different reading methods; one at home, and the one at school considerably different from that. Too young to discern the difference, I'm sure she's absorbing everything seamlessly. As for me and Grace, it's a new lesson; a lesson we thought we already know from nine years back! "chuh, ung, gluh"; huh?


Mon