Day 13 at St. Florence: Satisfaction

the students here are subjected to biannual testing in their aptitude for spelling. 32 common words are dictated, with a demonstrative sentence, and they are to spell it. i think the same list will be used for grade 2 as well. they take the test at the beginning of the year and again around Feb/March to track improvement. this year, the second round of the spelling test fell on today (well after Feb/March, we realize, but we do not care). the words were fairly simple, but phonetically tricky (good, soon, pretty, would, train etc.), so the test measured experience with words more than anything.

at the beginning of the year, a majority of the scores were 0 - 9, with three outliers hitting 16, 21 and 22 out of 32 respectively. the little cute boy (who licks himself) got 0 in October, and scored a 21 this time around. he talked throughout the test and supplied sentences at times ("would... would you like to kiss me?"). improvements like that were across the board. the kid who scored 16 the first time scored 31 today, only mispelling the final word pretty as 'pritty'. nerd girl (of pee-pee foot fame, was away again, so she did not play -- i assume she would know how to spell pretty). the girl who scored 22 actually transferred to another school the day before i first arrived. juding by the scores i've seen and the tones of veneration i hear when teachers and students speak of her, she must've really been something special.

putting those two scores side-by-side and seeing the huge leaps of improvement really make all the yelling and haranguing worthwhile.