Youth Garden Assessment

Last week the Boyo had his kindergarten assessment at his soon to be new school. He was not at all nervous about going in and getting tested, as school is a very fun place to be for him. His mother and I had our trepidations however, as we have known and loved this kid since long before he was born.

First off, the Boyo is a pretty smart kid in my opinion. he's known his alphabet since he was two, and has been reading mono and multi syllabic words for quite some time now. Unfortunately, he has also acquired through some cruel twist of genetic fate, his fathers slightly smart alecy attitude.

So during the assessment, he goes off with one of the kindergarten teachers who essentially puts him through his paces. He did one of these last year, and we got to be in the room with him for that one. I remember that they showed him flash cards and he had to identify objects. I also remember very specifically that his mom and I were quite surprised with the number of objects he identified that we had not directly shown him. But he was having fun and showing off and he did quite well at that one.

Well, we didn't get to go for this kindergarten one, but soon the teacher and our little learner came back and we sat all sat at a table with ridiculously undersized chairs to discuss the results.

He had done well, but he had missed quite a few of the letter sounds, said the teacher. This puzzled me, as I know that he knows all of those sounds. He had missed sounds like 'buh for B' and 'ks for X'. I looked over at the Boyo, who was following instructions and drawing a picture of himself, and I knew immediately what had happened.

Sometimes when we are reading or counting or playing some learning game, he will try to reverse the tables on me. Usually when we are, say, making letter sounds I'll ask him what sound B makes. He'll say "Buh. Now what sound does C make?" and I'll say "I don't know. What sound does C make?" And he will answer. But when he starts feeling his oats a bit, and I'll ask him something like "What does C-A-T spell?" He'll respond with "I don't know Daddy. What does C-A-T spell?"

He thinks it's very amusing to see the look of frustration on my face when he says things like this. So I'm pretty sure he was testing his teacher a bit during the assessment, because she told us that on some of the letter sounds he would say "I don't know. What does that letter say?"

I remember as I grew up being just quick witted enough to be either funny and amusing or rather aggravating to my teachers. A bit of a smart alec. And lord help me, my son is showing the same tendencies.

Oy. It could be a long thirteen years.

Overall he did just fine, as all a kindergartener really needs to know is the alphabet, counting one to ten, four basic shapes and six or seven colors. So he's waaaay ahead of the curve in most regards. Now if he'll just follow his mothers lead and be a little serious as he's learning!

More Later