Grace's School Report: Brag, brag, brag....

Today was our first parent/teacher conference (other than the one in February where they said she was not listening in class and we discovered that the real problem was that she was not interested in serving as the Teaching Assistant, all likely due to the departure of her original teacher and advancement by her close friend to the next class). It went very well, with Grace scoring highest ("independent") on nearly everything and "progressing" on sharing, awareness of relation to space (on, under, in, etc.), and respect for personal space (she sits too close to others....why that is an issue, especially at this age, I cannot fathom). She knows the alphabet and recognizes the written names of all her classmates (at 29 months -- and she has done so since age 2). She still has trouble identifying numbers but can count sequentially up to 27. Fine motor skills, comprehension, inquisitiveness -- all above average.

Our biggest problem is that she is way ahead of her classmates developmentally but because of her birthdate, the school won't advance her to the next level until December, maybe October/November if we are lucky. Meanwhile, half the kids in her class will move up to the next level in August simply because of their birthdays. I think we are going to face this kind of challenge for many, many years to come. In China, all the people we met would see her and remark "Clever baby!" I never doubted their assessment but often wondered how they could know so quickly.

The Director mentioned that her son (who is about a year and a half older) has been asking to invite Grace for a play date. He stopped her in the hall and asked her for her phone number. "I don't know my number," said Grace. "You don't know your phone number?" he asked, incredulous. "Why not?" Grace responded, "I don't know." He then turned to his mom and complained "She doesn't know her phone number." The Director said to her son, "But you don't know your phone number." "So what," he said, "I don't need to call myself."

I would teach Grace her number but I didn't think I'd be in the position of fielding calls for her at such an early stage. Maybe they could just text each other.....