Girl Genius?

(Warning: This is a pretty obnoxious "my kids are so smart" blog post. At least give me credit for not posting "my first grader is SO smart!" on Facebook, eh?)

Ella got her report card yesterday. She is rocking the first grade. In our district, the first graders don't receive letter grades. Their grades take the form of "needs work," "skill developing," and "skill mastered." If a skill has been mastered, it means the child doesn't need any help and can complete that particular task, subject, etc., consistently and accurately.

Ella received "skill mastered" across the board with three exceptions (which are still developing). One of the skills that is still developing is self-control. And honestly, with the transformation that kid has made from preschool to first grade in terms of keeping her temper in check, I was beyond pleased to have that skill be at "developing." The other skill that is developing is grammar and punctuation (and honestly, I sort of blame the whole "best guess" spelling thing they pushed so hard in kindergarten for this) and counting by 1s and 2s (this has really been mastered as far as I'm concerned, but whatever). The upshot is that Ella has basically learned everything she was expected to learn in first grade. And it's only March. Likewise Sadie has mastered ALL of her preschool skills. I'm ready to toss them both into the next grade up.

Ella is reading Harry Potter right now. Looking back, I guess I've mentioned this before. Which I guess means she is currently on book 2? And I'm not saying this in the way of a parent who is bragging about their kid reading some ridiculous book several grade levels above her or in the way of a parent who is pushing her kid to read books that are beyond her. Ella picked up Harry Potter of her own accord and has proceeded to read about half the book in the past few weeks. Given her observations about how the book and movie are different, I'd say her comprehension is pretty good--especially when you consider that the Harry Potter books were not written for first graders. I actually have no idea what grade level Harry Potter is, but it is getting so I feel like I need to preread Ella's books to make sure the content is appropriate. I mean, if she is reading books meant for fifth graders, isn't she going to start running into breasts and periods and sex and stuff? I really have no clue. At the very least, I'd hate for her to read a book that ruins the Santa thing for her!!

Someone asked me recently how we got our kids to be such big readers. I'm actually not sure it's anything we specifically did. We have tons of books in the house. The kids see us read. Dean and I are both in hugely literary fields. I mean, how can you have a mother who is an editor and a father who is a librarian and NOT like books? Regardless of how it happened, I am completely thrilled that my girls love to read as much as I did as a little kid.

It's funny--even though the school is VERY laid-back about the grading process, Ella was nervous about her report card coming home and kept asking whether or not it was "good." I honestly doubt a report card much better than hers went home (four or five of the categories deal with behavior, and we ARE talking about seven-year-olds here), which is what I told her. Can't *imagine* where this kid inherited such a type-A mentality from. Must have been her father...