magic moments

after volunteering last semester, i was offered a job at an elementary school which i graciously accepted and started just a few weeks ago.

as a volunteer, i worked with two teachers, primarily with their EL students and low readers to help bring them up to par. to my pleasure, all my students exceeded expectations and moved to the next level as well as performed well on the state testing. this year, i am again working with one of those two teachers and she has me started right away working with the students she identified from the beginning and being slow readers.

one of the children i am working with i have begun to develop a relationship with. while he can be spacey and likes to goof around, i can tell he really does want to improve and he does make an effort to do his best when we work together. as i work with him, sometimes we sound out words together and other times i pick out the vowels and have him find the corresponding sound/spelling cards so that he knows all the sounds in the word and can sound it out himself.

yesterday, when i walked into the classroom, he came up to me and said something along the lines of miss gina, i want to read the third book. after taking care of some other classroom business, him and i got to work. while reading together, he made an effort to sound out the words the way i have been teaching him AND looked over at the sound/spelling cards without me having to prompt him.

this was definitely a highlight of my day.