Learning curve

Summer is in full swing, which means I try and spend the majority of mg time running from one air conditioned location to another. Though Cardin won’t be going on to kindergarten next year we’ve been spending a great deal of time working with her on writing and math skills.

Some of this is due to the stringent New York State core standards I know she will be faced with come her enrollment into kindergarten, but much is due to her own inquisitive nature and desire to learn. When she finished preschool, I picked up a kindergarten workbook for her to do over the summer and she’s blown through it.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, she displays many of the same stubborn traits of her very strong willed mother when it comes to comprehension. Just yesterday we were working on writing her letters and she is insistent that certain letters are formed in a particular way. For example, the letter ‘b’ does not swoop to the right, you draw the circle to the left. I think I tried to explain,in 300 different ways, that this would make the letter ‘d’ instead. Listen lady, clearly I’m lying to you.

Somedays her focus and concentration is like hardened steel and we can do 30 pages in her workbook. Other days we are hard pressed to get through the directions on one page without her nat sized attention span being drawn to a spec of dust.

I’m blown away by how quickly she picks up new challenges and understand directions from the workbook. I often times don’t even need to read the directions for her to understand the concepts on the page. She can already think critically and do simple math in her head. (Not her fingers, so she is like 5 paces ahead of mom).

Her receptive knowledge has always been exceptionally high, even when she was evaluated for speech therapy services. The kid knew everything, she just refused to talk. Now she’s smart and talks back!