When I enrolled Aaron at Penn Alexander last month, I was given two books that last year's kindergarteners had received at the end of the school year. These were books that were to be read over the summer before the start of 1st grade, so they gave me a sense of what reading level they expected kids to attain to by this point in time.
If this is correct, it confirms my premise that Aaron will be in for a pretty rude awakening. At his old school, Aaron was in the top half of his class, and made honor roll the last two quarters. I don't know where he will slot in at his new school, but I do know that he has struggled mightily with these two books. We've been at them for the past couple of weeks, and still it takes him about three minutes per page, and this is with me giving clues or filling in harder words for him. I have no idea how well or fast his future classmates are digesting these books, but I'm pretty sure 45 minutes for a 16-page book that has two sentences per page is slower than the pace they'll be going at in the classroom. And Aaron does not do well with correction and failure. It'll be interesting to see how he responds to his new educational setting. I hope Amy and I will know how to come alongside him on his reading, which has always been a struggle for him and which will now occupy a considerable chunk of each school day.
