Being a Parent in Parent Teacher Conference

We always say that schooling is second home for our kids, the most important one. We as parents think our babies are the world, but parent teacher conferences teach us otherwise: that they are not the rock stars we think they are.

My daughter is an ardent reader, and we were so proud  of that fact, until we attended a PT conference, that made us realize something. Yes, she reads, a lot, she loves to hold a book everywhere she goes – but that’s fiction, she loves, her comics, her story books.

And then one day, we were told by her teacher, “Excuse me, I’m not upgrading her to another level because the non-Fiction she reads, she doesn’t understand, she’s not learning.” This sentence hit us like a ton of bricks… Damaaal! “What ! What are you saying Teacher ! She loves reading, she’s reading all the time.”

What we realized, (after we took a second to calm down) is that in her speed she’s overlooked something very basic:  punctuation, commas  and full stops. It’s what helps you stop, take a breath  and understand the line that you’re reading. Proudly declaring that she’s such a fast reader, we didn’t focus on the right thing: just because she quickly finishes a book, it doesn’t necessarily mean she has actually understood it. This was quite an eye-opener!

It was such a different PTC this time for us. At every conference so far, we’ve been told that she’s the best , she’s doing so well. But at her new school, the teachers asks the students to identify what they must improve. So this time, our daughter had to talk to us about what she has done, what she wants to improve and what she finds difficult. She had written that she will read slowly, read more non-fiction books and understand what she’s reading.

So now, every evening, I make her read at-least 10 pages of non-fiction loudly to me with punctuation and there’s a quiz at the end to make sure she understands. And my little boy sits in front of her listening to her in awe. So that’s hopefully giving him a good habit in future.

She is still the world to us, still a rock star and the kindest soul on this planet, but constructive opinions are good to bring us back to earth.