Our Little Brainiac

You know I always thought that Emily functioned abouve average. I'm not one to brag about it, but the kid knew all of her letters and numbers by the time she was two. And by 18 months she was singing a variety of songs on her own. They were audible and right. She constantly blew us away with the things that she knew. And she has such a desire to learn and soaks in everything that you tell her. Kinda freaks me out sometimes. By the first quarter or preschool, she was reading. In kindergarten, she was acing her spelling tests and was the top reader in all three classes. By the time we got to Kindergarten conferences, her teacher wanted to push her thru to first grade. I wasn't too thrilled about that because I was just adjusting to having her away from us for five days a week and I surely wasn't ready for her to be gone five FULL days, so we kept her in Kindergarten.

As first grade started, we realized that she was acing all of her tests and her teacher started testing her reading comprehension without our knowledge, just to see where Emily sat on the charts. The day that I found out that we were going to have Maggie in two days, the principal at Em's school called. Kinda freaked me out. I think as a parent, we always freak when the school calls, right? Well, the principal informed me that she wanted to move Emily into second grade. Apparently, the testing that Em's teacher did was off the charts. She is testing at a level 30 reading and comprehension level (end of 5th grade) and average for 1st grade is 6. She scored 85% on the first grade end of the year math test with no instruction.

What a huge thing! Like seriously, I don't want to have to make decisions like that. We took some time though and talked about it. Jay was all for it because it was going to benefit her in the long run. She was bored in first grade and needed a challenge. I looked at it that she is a young kid in her grade to start with and when all is said and done she will be 16 when she graduates. YIKES! After much discussion and talks with family and friends we decided to go for it.

So, the MOnday after I had Maggie, I walked Emily into her second grade class. All new friends and all new class. I was nervous for her, but she was thrilled. It's been almost three weeks and she is doing fantastic. She is actually getting a few problems wrong on her math work and we have to show her her mistakes. We've never had to do that! She is challenged and loving it. For now, I couldn't be happier with our decision. I just hope I feel that way in 8 years. :)