tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1990338437877873686.post1692469581805463408..comments2024-03-28T16:47:51.948-04:00Comments on Murder is Everywhere: la RentréeOvidia Yuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749549092493567689noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1990338437877873686.post-39634476979429283462011-09-09T10:58:50.718-04:002011-09-09T10:58:50.718-04:00Beth you make a good point. Madeleine was moved up...Beth you make a good point. Madeleine was moved up one grade, not two and I'm anxious to hear about her first week at school. I think my friend was quite conflicted about her moving up and though hard about it. She said unless the teacher had recommended and pursued this she wouldn't have. At least the école primaire and maternelle share the same playground so she'll have her friends at recess. Dan, enjoy a quiet house! CaraCara Blackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14592098418515886674noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1990338437877873686.post-55936281058733710692011-09-09T09:34:19.449-04:002011-09-09T09:34:19.449-04:00Yes, back to school here in London this week too. ...Yes, back to school here in London this week too. Thank God! I love the kids but there's nothing like waving them off to school after a long holiday...<br /><br />The practice of moving kids up a year/grade has been almost abandoned in the UK for reasons Beth cites. It was thought it affected the children socially, being moved out of their peer group, and so nullified any academic benefits. i know a few people who were moved up and all but one had a very miserable time of it. Unable to fit in with the older kids, but no longer part of their original group. I'm sure your friends daughter will be fine though. Done early, as in this case, and the child can adapt.Dan Waddellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04320741202757960766noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1990338437877873686.post-45945589881662402982011-09-06T17:05:25.871-04:002011-09-06T17:05:25.871-04:00I even enjoyed the paintings! Reminds me of my da...I even enjoyed the paintings! Reminds me of my days in school when we were tested on recognizing artists from untitled flashcards of their paintings. At least here I get to keep my guesses to myself.:)<br /><br />JeffJeffrey Sigerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00718317707555064653noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1990338437877873686.post-26607550350968518222011-09-06T15:59:03.950-04:002011-09-06T15:59:03.950-04:00Double promotions are very rare in Massachusetts a...Double promotions are very rare in Massachusetts and, I assume, the rest of the US. The issue is, of course, maturity and that often doesn't become a problem for the child until high school. <br /><br />There are always a few kids who can read when they are younger than six. Very often, that has less to do with intellectual ability than it does with the development of muscles and with coordination. To follow a line across the page from left to right requires that the muscles be developed enough to cross the midline and that midline is not on the page but on the body.<br /><br />The brain-body connection is so complicated. One example of crossing the midline is something we take for granted. If we want to get someone's attention in a crowd, a person we know for example, most people make a large gesture to attract attention. We bring our right hand up to our left shoulder and we move the hand back to the right in an arc. That's crossing the midline and we start to develop that ability when we learn to crawl.<br /><br />Then, to make things interesting, some kids can read before they have the coordination to cross the midline. My oldest didn't crawl until the day before she walked on her own. She was 10 months old so she didn't have the spatial awareness that comes at 12 months. She couldn't walk through a door way without banging her head. She read before she was five but that spatial awareness still hasn't kicked in. She has absolutely no sense of direction.<br /><br />Having a child skip a grade may be a good thing for some, but frequently the differences in physical and social maturation create problems when they are in high school or in college. The daughter of a friend of a friend, a girl much older than my kids, was given a double-promotion because her parents were afraid of the boredom factor. But as she moved through the grades it became more difficult for her to have friends; her interests were different, in line with her chronological age. She left college after two weeks. She was at least a year younger than everyone else and she looked two or three years younger. She didn't return to college until she was in her twenties.<br /><br />Early reading is a mixed blessing. I did't teach my children how to read. I didn't know the oldest could read until she brought me a newspaper article she had found interesting. What she didn't have were the skills that come with learning phonics and the tools that allow readers to figure out the ways in which words are created. In first grade, she stayed with her class for reading so she could learn the basics and she also went to the fourth grade for book reading stuff (literature doesn't seem an appropriate word).<br /><br /><br />Your little friend will do fine as long as her parents don't allow teachers or other people to lose sight of her actual age. My daughter hated the children's librarian. Maura would cruise the aisles and choose her books carefully but sometimes when she went to have the books checked out, the librarian would give me a signal that the topic was too old for her. I would remove the book and Maura would rant all the way home.<br /><br />The United States can never have an educational system like that in France. Here, the requirements of education are determined by each state. <br /><br />I know of a sure-fire way of knowing if a child is old enough to attend school. Ask the child to take a hand and reach across the head to touch the ear on the opposite side. If they can do it, they are old enough for school. When European nuns went to Africa to set up schools, generally the kids didn't have birth certificates. Someone who had spent a life time with little children noticed that disparity between four and five year old children and this became the manner by which they knew who was old enough for school and who wasn't.Bethhttp://www.murderbytype.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.com