Angie's 1st Progress Report

I met up with Angie's teachers on 18 June for a mid-year review of Angie's progress in school.

In Angie's first progress report card, her English teacher, Ms P, wrote:

"Angie is a cheerful girl who has learnt to become very independent in school. She is very friendly and has an easy-going personality.

Angie is attentive during lessons and enjoys singing songs and reciting rhymes. Although shy at times, music lets her emerge fully from her her shell and allows her to express her feelings and emotions freely.

Angie enjoys craftwork and does them at her own pace, uninterrupted by her on-going surroundings.

She enjoys books too whenever she needs a break from the hustle and bustle of school life, picking a book of her choice and finding a nice spot to read it.

Outdoor play is one of her favourite times of the day, attempting to scale obstacles and giving a victory smile to herself when she felt she had conquered the obstacle.

It is a joy to have Angie with us!"

It was quite assuring for me to hear from them that Angie did not display much of an attention deficit problem as highlighted to me by her weekly enrichment Teacher S who, in my opinion, sometimes likes to talk too much and too long.

This eloquent teacher can do reading and book discussion with the young children for as long as 45mins (hey, that's more than one period in school context!) - even I had occasional difficulties paying attention when I used to accompany Angie to her class when she was younger. No wonder Angie became zombified after a while - Teacher S told me she had to call her name a few times to get her attention and when she managed to do so, Angie would look past her instead of holding eye contact with her. She suggested I check with her school teachers if her behaviour was repeated in her school and hinted to me "early intervention does make a big difference". Her feedback made me worried for many days (which mummy wouldn't?) and I had sleepless nights, wondering if Angie really does have some sort of learning disability.

Thank goodness the same scenerio does not happen in her preschool, according to her two teachers. When I shared with them what teacher S had told me, they felt that happened probably Angie was not familiar with Teacher S.

Meanwhile, hubby thinks Teacher S has overly high expectations (since her own kids are very bright) and tends to favour students who are more academically advanced or responsive towards her teaching methods.

Anyway, I am glad I don't have to think about whether to stop the girls' lessons with her or not because this Saturday will be their last lesson because Teacher S is going to birth soon - phew!