So, Nea is 10 now. She's having a great year at summer school (ESY). Finally a teacher who is teaching! He's reading real literature with them and introducing new concepts. He's doing fractions and teaching them about improper fractions using visual representations. Then he made some YouTube videos to show us parents what that means! Unbelievable.
This is, shockingly, Nea's 7th year in ESY (we skipped last year because we were traveling). And it's the first year I'm not disgusted with what a waste of time it is. She has always enjoyed going, though, and she gets a little speech therapy every week (45 minutes, half of her school year IEP amount), so we kept sending her.
At home we've been reading Junie B. Jones, gearing up for a book club with Nea's best friend, who lives across the street. Nea is reading chapter books! There was great rejoicing! And she's very excited about book group. Let me just tell you, when your friend helps motivate your child to read, that's the best kind of friend. Thank you, Beth! You are a gem.
Some people don't like Junie B. Jones books because they are written in the voice of a kindergartener with poor grammar. Poor past tense verbs, etc. What gets me is that the teacher doesn't know the difference between "good" and "well." So annoying. But if we weren't reading this book, I wouldn't know how well Nea understands adverbs! So instead of reading what the book says ("So listen very careful."), Nea reads, "So listen very carefully." And my heart sings.
