Sedona's Kindergarten Assessment

By KEVIN DING

We had our first parent-teacher conference, sitting down with Sedona's kindergarten teacher Mrs. Strong. She confirmed our belief that Sedona is pretty advanced in many areas -- especially reading -- having already mastered most everything she is supposed to learn in the next seven months or so of kindergarten. But we are looking forward to Mrs. Strong testing Sedona soon to gauge her level of reading better -- and we knew this year of school would be good for Sedona to continue growing in social development anyway. Sedona is a year younger than most of her classmates.

Sedona told me before she hasn't really gotten the chance to read out loud for Mrs. Strong, but Mrs. Strong said she noticed one day that Sedona had picked up the teaching book after Mrs. Strong put it down and started reading it herself. She asked us how we cultivated her great love for reading, because she always opts for reading over other activities when given the free-time option in class. Mrs. Strong said Sedona seems like a model child, playing well by herself and playing well with others. She said Sedona has gained confidence and comfort since the start of school a month and a half ago, and she has started raising her hand more often these days (see "participates" mark below).

Sedona said the test that Mrs. Strong did on the skills below was done early in the school year, and Sedona was feeling kind of shy still -- not yet fully comfortable with the teacher -- and thus didn't do everything to the best of her ability. For example, she is cited in the report as counting to 32 (missing 13), which is considered good for her class, but then the day after the conference she counted to 119 in the car, stopping only because she got confused about 119 being 199 and we had concluded more than a month ago she could count to 199.

In any case, we came away from the meeting feeling warm inside about Sedona's smarts and sweetness.