Mitt or Matt, here for 2 months and still not fluent???

First stop tomorrow to buy a rice cooker!

We were trying to find copies of the books I needed for work tomorrow and ended up too far from home for dinner. An attempt to settle the restaurant with Rock, Paper, Scissors, did not bring a decision that could satisfy everyone.

I think the main problem for all was withdrawal from Grandmother, Grandfather!

Part of our search at the book store was for more books in Chinese. Annabel gets so frustrated. English is so difficult to learn and Chinese still provides a way to learn, if only more things were written in Chinese!

Annabel's homework was to read a new "book" to me.

The words "the, and, is, a" are some of the most difficult for her. She continues to completely miss them in reading. But she wants her reading to be PERFECT!!

I had bought her a set of books called Bob's Books. http://www.bobbooks.com/ are a great resource for learning and are really cute too.

The only trouble is that the book tonight had Matt using a mitt. Somehow the a and the i must have sounded too much alike. She would not give up until she had it perfect. She finally got so frustrated I knew tears were imminent and announced the last few pages were PERFECT!

Annabel has done so well with adding English conversationally, but reading and comprehending are so difficult. I remember when I adopted Grace that I was told it would take a minimum of two years for her to develop a proficiency of English. After 6 months, she was doing so well, I could not imagine. I was sure I had a potential Rhodes scholar on my hands.

Now I know and recognize that 2 years is probably right.

The girls also got their report cards today.

This first 6 weeks were hard.

Grace never gets below a 90 and had 2 this time. But she also has never been in 5th grade and been responsible for adjusting to a new sister and being her translator.

Annabel's grades were quite a mystery.

I didn't expect her to get grades as she is listed as ESL, but there they were. Social Studies? Science? Reading? Language Arts?

I also found out that there is no mention on her records that English is not her primary language. Unless she spoke Spanish, no accommodations are made.

Matt and mitt sound difficult at this point. I don't know how she can understand the US politics when I don't! Geography and science? Wow! I would have shed tears too.