Friday, September 28, 2012

Smart

We use the word ‘smart’ a lot in our house. It’s always used as praise. When Alyssa brings home a perfect spelling test, she’s praised with, “You’re so smart!”

Olivia hears this often too. When she tells me the letters on a page of the book we’re reading or counts the correct number of items, I declared, “You’re so smart, such a smarty pants!”

Last night when I got to my mom’s I told Olivia I’d received an email from her teacher. I hugged Olivia and told her that her teacher was so excited to tell me that Olivia has talked to her yesterday, that Olivia was warming up to her and giving her grins and giggles and WORDS.

Ohh, the joy in reading that message from Mrs. H.

Olivia grinned at me and nodded, acknowledging that she’d done well. She then took me to Gram’s fridge where O had taped her school work for all the see.

This paper was full of letters with the instructions to circle every M on the page. Then, after circling the Ms, the students were to count them and write the number of Ms.

Olivia had done it perfectly and as a result, she got a sticker and a smiley face on her work. She was so proud of that sticker and smiley face. She was proud to be smart.

I hugged her in response to the school work and the report from her teacher. Then I told her how smart she is.

I went on to tell her that when she doesn’t talk to her teacher, Mrs. H can’t know how smart Olivia is, she doesn’t know all that Olivia knows. But when Olivia TALKS to her, she’s showing Mrs. H just how much she knows, how very, very smart she is.

I know that Olivia has challenges. We all do.

She works so hard to overcome those challenges. I’m so proud of how well she’s doing so far and I know that she’ll continue to surprise the hell out of everyone who meets her.

Yes, her processing is slower than that of her typical peers. We’re learning that if we give her more than two choices of something, it stresses her out. So for now, were sticking with two choices. That works for her. It gives her a bit of control without making things too hard.

And we’ll continue to tell her how smart she is, how proud we are of her, how amazing she keeps proving herself to be.

Not to be outdone, when Alyssa saw O's worksheet hanging on her Gram's fridge, A reminded us all that she has not yet had to take the final spelling test given each Friday. Her teacher has made it a rule that if any student manages to get every word correct on the 'practice' test on Thursdays, they don't have to take the final test on Friday. A hasn't missed a spelling word yet.

I love that my girls take pride in being smarties.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

So happy they are both doing so well. Olivia is such an inspitration I love the way you always encourage your girls.