On Saturday I took Marissa to get screened for kindergarten. While it may seem early to some, we're actually quite late in doing this -- they recommend screening as early as 3 so that if there are developmental issues they can be addressed early before even getting to school age.
But we weren't worried with Marissa, she seemed pretty smart to us so we waited until now, when we also have to pick her school, get her school choice card in, turn in her immunization records, etc.
The test consists of various exercises: building a block tower the same size as the one shown, asking if an object is over/under/behind, etc, knowing what your elbow is, writing your name, etc. Children need to score a 30 out of 64 to be able to get into kindergarten without needing additional screening.
Marissa scored a 63 out of the possible 64. When the tester was giving me her results, she asked me if I thought she seemed challenged in her pre-school program, and said that boredom may be an issue for her.
Wow. I had no idea.
We also talked a little bit about her acting out in school, in not being able to share with other children or getting along. The issues have nothing to do with taking direction or listening -- when it comes to the teachers and the curriculum, she's fully engaged. But she gets into trouble during free play time, because she gets into altercations with other children.
The screener had some great advice for me, first was that I should NOT tell Lake Harriet school about these issues. She said that we wouldn't want her to be labeled as a troublemaker right from the onset. And second, she said to remember that since she's 97th percentile for height and 84th for weight, she may not be pushing or hitting any more than other kids, but she's so much bigger than all the other kids that she gets caught more often, because there's more of a reaction. I thought that was pretty good advice, I'll be keeping that in mind.
In the meantime, I am so proud of our little girl for being such a smarty pants!
She is a little smarty! As for the problems with other kids, I always think the bigger kids have it rough because they look older. My friend's 2 year old looks like he is 5 and people give her such disapproving looks when he acts like a 2 year old. I never had that problem...up until 3rd grade people mistakenly thought I was a kindergartner. :)
ReplyDeleteTakes after her grandpa on the Floria side. Heh, heh, heh!!!
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