I have been looking forward to this post all month. Celebrating our victories, no matter how small and insignificant they seem, are worth a woopwoop! and a high five. At the very least. Frankly, acknowledging my small victories is what gives me a little more fight to continue on the journey of parenthood.
Learning to be Marie's parent has been a long, dark and twisty road. It's still long but not as dark and twisty these days. Thank you victories! On the big bad days when my tongue was on fire and my hands didn't behave like the Mrs. Sexy God created, I felt wrought with guilt. One of the things that kept me moving forward was the personal victory of a smile, an I'm sorry or the mere fact that I managed to make dinner that night.
Celebrating the victories!, large and small, help every day.
Since homeschooling, I have one huge victory! that I want to share with you. I'm incredibly proud of myself and Marie for our hard work and dedication.
When I became part of her life and started attending IEP meetings for the first time I was completely overwhelmed. I said yes to every suggestion the teachers had because they knew better than I. Time passed and I began to have an opinion. One of my opinions was that Marie's handwriting sucked and needed improvement. Her teachers agreed. Then I started hearing, "I can't figure out how to make her write nicely." I heard this many times in a variety of ways. Towards the end of Marie's 5th grade year her teacher pushed to focus more on typing skills and less on handwriting. I wasn't happy about this but wasn't sure Marie was capable of decent handwriting. I had never worked with her on it. I just checked homework. Aren't the teachers the ones to teach things like proper handwriting?
Enter me as the overbearing homeschooling mom who has high expectations no matter who you are.
Enter Marie who has not been held to high standards for a number of years.
Put us together and you have a girl who can write legibly, correctly and neatly. This is a feat I had been told was impossible.
It really makes my blood boil when I think about it.
Teaching Marie how to write appropriately in the lines was (and is) laborious work. At first we spent an entire hour attempting to write one letter correctly. One letter. But that's what it took for her to be where she is now in her writing.
Another thing I do that her teachers didn't do is I make her write correctly all the time. Not just when we are practicing. When she is doing math and her 4 (4s are hard) is below the line I make her erase it and write the 4 again. When she is doing science and her words are all jumbled together I make her erase it and practice correct spacing and good penmanship.
The result: She is getting better daily and I even hear her whispering to herself, "Oh that's a bad 4. I need to write that again."
What a victory! I have so much pride in her handwriting.
This is the A-Z blogging challenge so go ahead and read the introduction and see a list of all my A-Z posts.
Yay! Celebrating with you!
ReplyDeleteThat is awesome that she is doing so much better with your help. It makes me so mad when teachers make up their minds about a student and just don't hold them to the higher standards that they do all the others. I am positive this is was happened with my oldest son. I wish that I had stood my ground more back then. Keep up the good work mom
ReplyDeleteIt's even more frustrating because I specifically asked them to do it. Oh well.
DeleteGood job!!! Amazing. So wonderful the results we can get when we pore ourselves into our kids. And turn a "cannot" into a "Yes I Can!" So proud of both of you.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, she has better writing than I do! :)
That's awesome! By not giving up on kids we teach them to not give up on themselves. Way to go! New follower here. I'm stopping by from the "A to Z" challenge, and I look forward to visiting again.
ReplyDeleteSylvia
http://www.writinginwonderland.blogspot.com/
Handwriting. I suspect schools don't care much about it at all. All of the focus seems to be toward typing. I remember practicing my alphabet on lines sheets such as your picture shows. I'd be curious to know if schools make the kids do that at all these days. I do know that my writing, while generally legible, is not nearly as pretty as the writing of most of what I've seen from the prior generation and I'd be scared to look at what the next generation will produce.
ReplyDeleteMichael is in kindergarten and writing is a HUGE focus. They write on lines too. For Marie, they were pushing typing specifically because it is a life skill that she will need and she is getting older. I just wanted them to be worked on the same amount.
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