My Daughter is Soooo Busted!

I try very hard not to brag about my kiddos but, for tonight, I'm going to make an exception. Sorry, you'll have to bear with me.

I got my first clue that Ilaria was an intelligent child when I took her in for her 18-month well child check. She was actually 20 months old since we moved when she was 18 months so this was her first appointment with a new doctor. The doctor starts running through the things she was supposed to be able to do at 18 months and she asked me if she knew at least 10 words. Without thinking anything of it, I answered that she spoke in complete sentences. They were simple sentences like "I want that," "I see Miffy," and "I like candy." but they were sentences.

Well, the doctor looked at me like I was completely bragging and there was no way Ilaria could be speaking in complete sentences at her age. So, that night, my husband and I sat down and started writing down all the words she knew. We stopped at over 200.

So, early on, we thought she was one smart cookie. Until she started preschool. That was when she decided we didn't know anything. (And I thought parents became stupid in their kids' eyes when they were teenagers not 4 years old! LOL!)

From then on, we have not been able to teach Ilaria very much at all. From the time I tried to get her to write her name on, she would always do so much more for her teachers than for us. We've had many, many nights of struggles and tears and "I can't do it" whines! Especially this school year when she had to master a huge list of words every week.

I seriously doubted her abilities and I kept thinking she has to be so far behind her classmates. Surely, they aren't having this hard of a time at reading.

Well, when her folder came home last week with an update note on reading skills, it said that by the end of the year first graders should be scoring between 100 to 300 on the reading ability test but the paper didn't say where she scored on it. I sent in a note and asked what her score was. The teacher had her take the computerized test and my little kiddo scored 473.

473!!! That's the fourth grade level. My little "I can't read" girl is sooooo busted! There will be no more excuses from her. I'm not buying it one minute more! Heck, she just might be grounded over this. LOL!

Happy Scrapping!