Reading with Miss Ruby

After our visit with Troy’s potential new school, my wife has been panicking that he will be behind the other kids in his class. Mostly because the actual teaching part of the curriculum doesn’t seem to be all that important to the new teachers he got stuck with this year. Unlike their predecessors, they treat it more like a daycare and less like a school. The progress the students had been making with Reading, Writing, Math, and Science has ground to a halt. We call it the lost year.

Apparently, there are several kids in his class that have been doing this for the past year just to get into the better private schools in the area. Who knew kindergarten was so competitive?! Anyway, when she found that some of them could legibly write their names and read on a basic level, she went into full-on anxiety mode. So, my wife has been looking for outside places that we could take Troy to bolster certain subjects, particularly Reading and Writing.

She happened to mention this to Troy’s babysitter, who just happens to be the amazing teacher he started the school year with, who unfortunately quit due to poor administration at the school. And Miss Ruby told my wife that she actually has a kindergarten prep course that she put together, which she would have been putting the kids through had she stayed at Troy’s school. She offered to share it with Troy, and my wife eagerly accepted. So, now Miss Ruby comes over every Tuesday and Thursday to specifically work with Troy on his Reading and Writing skills.

We are expected to make ourselves scarce to limit distraction, while they learn together. Miss Ruby intermingles learning with playing to take advantage of Troy’s limited attention span and maximize his interest. He seems to be onboard with the idea, and he’s already made some progress. I also continue to quiz him on his letters and sound out words with him during our bedtime book sessions, which I hope is reemphasizing what he’s learning with her. Ultimately, it comes down to repetition…that and desire. He’s got a vast capacity to pick up new things and not only retain them, but apply them. He just has to want to do it.