I can read!

Both Chris and I have been teaching Aaron to read lately. Chris has started teaching Aaron to read while he has been reading Harry Potter books to Aaron before bed. He started out with little words like: to, it, and, that, etc. A week or two ago, I started teaching Aaron to read from a book that my sister-in-law uses to teach her kids with. It is called "Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons."

It has been fun seeing him light up when he is sounding out a word and then puts it all together and says the full word. Right now we are in lessons that have sentences and pictures that go with the sentence at the end of the lesson. Aaron gets really excited when he can read the sentence by himself. The lesson that we worked on today ended with these sentences: A sock is in the sun. The sock is on me.

Some other sentences that Aaron can read by himself include: An ant is fat. It can sit and eat. A man sat on a ram. That ram can not see.

I am glad that Aaron loves to learn. He is so excited for school to start in the fall. He tells me most every day that he has to some school work and work on his reading. He enjoys doing workbooks that Grandma Wendy bought for him. From them he has been learning things about math, letters, etc.

I am trying to decide right now where I would like to send Aaron to kindergarten. Where we live, there is an open enrollment policy for the district. I have heard conflicting things about the elementary school we are zoned for. Some parents love it, if you can get the right teachers, and others haven't liked it very much. The school also has about 60% of kids who speak English as a second language (ESL). I have been told that if your child does well, that they get instructions from the teacher and then are kind of left on their own while the teacher goes and works mostly with the kids who don't speak English. I know the other ESL kids need an education too, but I feel that with Aaron he will rise to whatever level he is challenged to. I also know that he will want a lot of attention from the teacher and will want to ask a lot of questions. I would like for him to go to a school where he can get the attention he needs and to excel.

Chris thinks we should just send him to the school we are zoned for, that way he will always have the same friends through elementary school, Jr high etc. The friend thing doesn't bother me so much because I know he will be able to make friends easily wherever he goes. There is a family in our ward that goes to a school where they have incorporated a different learning style. It is called Classical Education. The kids love it. The mom can see a big change in her kids since she has put them in this school. Her kids did go to the elementary school that we are zoned for and did fine in that school, but just didn't like school that much and now she says her kids love school and love to do their homework and read. She is a big supporter of Classical Education. I am still trying to decide if I want to try that with Aaron.

I need to make a decision soon because kindergarten registration is next month! I don't know if I am over analyzing things or not. What would you do if you could send your child to any elementary school in your district?