parent teacher conferences

Today's the day. This week has been tough for little Scooter. She didn't want to go to school on Monday. That was surprising. First of all, it was Halloween, which at her school meant she could wear pjs to school. Secondly, it was Halloween. Duh. No school, no trick or treating. But it was also the day that her dad was coming to visit her at school. Her dad, and taun taun. And Scooter just didn't want to go.

I talked Scooter into getting out of bed, and she started her day. Slowly. I guess her morning routine has devolved from getting ready, doing her reading and still getting out the door early to barely getting ready in time to catch the bus. In the early afternoon, I got a call from Scooter's teacher. She wanted to let me know that Scooter's dad, and her, uh. stepmom (?) ate lunch with Scooter, and told her they were going to pick her up after school. Her teacher wanted to make sure that was OK. Yes! That right there is one of the reasons why I like that school. Even though the ex is on the list of approved picker-uppers, they still call just to make sure. Hopefully, that was OK with Scooter...

Yesterday, she was slow in the morning again, but I chalked it up to a late night trick or treating. And then we had massive tears over mediocre homework last night. Seriously. You're in THIRD GRADE. Use a complete sentence to answer your READING questions. Then, I found out she's not in the top reading group this year. She went from the best reader in the 2nd grade to what? Obviously not the best. She did no work on her reading or writing over the summer, and she slipped. I often wondered about that when we'd read together. I'd ask her if she knew what certain words or concepts were, and she'd say no. Comprehension is an important part of reading. It seems like reading, along with all of her other school work has become a rush-job with no work put into it.

She spent a year where everything was done for her. Where the bare minimum was praised. Where she was left to read for hours on end. Ugh. In kindergarten and 1st grade, we often struggled with sounding out words and working to figure stuff out. Scooter has always liked to just "know" stuff. With the apparent absense of encouragement and parenting last year, it's like we're starting all over again to get her to actually work for her education. Ugh.

In the meantime, second-highest reading group. (thus...little to no chance at TAG this year), and you know, once you fall "behind," it's that much harder to get back up again. But I shouldn't get ahead of myself, I guess. Let's just start with the parent-teacher conference tonight and go from there...