The Truth Comes Out

Last Thursday, I attended Ryan's Back to School Night. I learned the real Ryan from the staff. After his summer had ended, he wasn't like him. His habits changed for better.

After I observed and listened the staff, I really like the teacher very much. It was a good move for me to fight it way through. While I was there, there were two aides (normally, aides don't come to Back to School Night, but they did), Ryan's teacher and a speech therapist were there.

The teacher is very organized! She does have high expectations.

The comments I got from the staff:

1) No tears or tantrum since the first day of school ! On the first day of school, he sneered but then the aides told him to stop. He stopped ever since the first day. When I told them that Ryan used to take off his shoes, and lost his temper, their comment was, "NO WAY JOSE' !" They were stunned that he is a totally different boy than a year and a half ago.

2) The speech therapist said, "The first two sessions, he wouldn't talk much until the second week. He talks a lot even saying in a sentence . He is a really sweet boy."

3) Teacher and aides told me that "Ryan is a very smart boy. He has passed all of his Kindergarten words." (It seems to be correct because I bought Post It from Wal-Mart for his age. I tested him (typical of me as a teacher :-) and found that he recognized 21 out of 50 words, but knowing that he can read more than that - especially from the vocational vocabulary words: open, closed, push, pull, stop and go.

4) There is no need to prompt him to go and play with the other typical kids. He just dashed it off to play with other typical kids at recess.

5) He does not rebel to write his own name, or even using with the two holes scissor without assistance. He does cut lines perfectly! Can you believe that? ( He now does not rebel when it comes to his homework !) Last Spring, he was only able to use little bit of cutting, but using three hole scissors. Now, he cut it perfectly in a square?! What happened?!

His works from Back to School Night show:

1.) There was a place mat. He showed few of the manuscript letters that he wrote it on his own.

2) He was able to make his own face correctly: eyes, eyebrow, eyelashes, ears, nose, hair and mouth in a right place.. He even colored his brown eyes and brown hair. (Actually, he looked the older kids up and see what they were doing.)

3) He was able to recognize all kinds of insects learned from his previous pre-school, and do it in patterns (by colors) for his math without a problem.

4) He was able to color the shapes correctly. For instances: color red for squares, color blue for circle. He did that on his own !

5) Match the constant letters ( h = hat, t =tent.). He got 8 out of 9 corrects without help!

I know I have seen the changes in him after he started his kindergarten. Today, he colored the Lightening McQueen (Red), Chick Hicks (Green) and audience (yellow) on his own. He even cut the 30 square apples perfectly and glued the paper apples up for his September calender. That was his choice to do this over the weekend!

He also did show and tell ( I thought it was the best thing that he practiced standing up in a front of the class from his pre-school class ) in order to help him to express his expressive skills, and even gaining his receptive skills. He nows reads out loud"Five Little Monkey Jumping On the Bed " perfectly.

On September 12th, I will have a 30 day placement. From there, she and other staff will tell me about Ryan's current performances. I will give you update information if you are interested.