AIG

Yay!  We've started the process for having H evaluated for her school's Academically and Intellectually Gifted program.  I'm hoping this will be the next best thing to homeschooling her.  I know she could be much more challenged in school, at least in reading and writing.  She's at a second-grade reading level in kindergarten.  Their journal entries at the start of the year were "I see a cat." when her brain was thinking, "There's an orange, white, and black cat over there.  I wonder whose it is."  It was painful to see her dumb down her typical answers to questions in order to fit into that simplistic paradigm.  Yes, shorter answers are easier for young children to write, and I know you have to start somewhere, but, again, oh, how it hurt to hear her speak like a Dick and Jane book.  Also, her teacher hasn't had her students practice writing in any serious way, so H's handwriting is often atrocious, even though she can formed her letters very nicely when we sit down with her to review them.  Am I over the top, or should a six-year-old be able to write her name legibly?  I finally got to help out a little in H's classroom on Monday, and I had a hard time deciphering nearly every name written on the little "hats" I was helping the children with.  Somebody please tell me they will focus on handwriting more in first grade!!  I know it's not as essential these days as it used to be, but it certainly shouldn't become a lost art.

Sorry to rant.  It's just frustrating seeing my daughter doing totally easy stuff the whole year long.  She was writing her letters when she was two and a half, albeit only capitals at that time.  You'd think that four years later she'd have finally been taught by either us or the school how to properly write them--consistently!