SO today it happened...and it was not the first time it ever happened..nor the first time I had seen it happen...nor the only time it happened today...but around 1:05 this afternoon, in the corner of my classroom, a child "took off' as a reader. Not just any child...but a child for whom reading and writing are particularly challenging due to a specific language disability - typically known as dyslexia.
This child has been working HARD to become a reader but it has not been easy. He has watched his classmates and perhaps even a sibling pass him by...and yet WE did not give up on him even when he avoided reading like the plague.
Today, as I listened to him read, I grabbed the 21st Century equivalent of an notepad - my cell phone - and hurridly recorded a video to share with his teacher, last year's teacher and his parents. There were a few tears rolling down my cheek as he continued on after rereading the pages we had previously read together. He read on with such confidence - so enganged in the stoy ... and so confident of his emerging strategies that he did not even notice or comment on my cell phone....he was reading ...and reading as a reader...engaged in the text and transformed into the characters...and the setting...and the story....
"That was great," he noted when I had to send him back to class for "free choice" Friday...he did not need to ask for an eraser nor a pencil for his efforts today...nor did he need my specific praise for what he had done well...while he could not yet articulate what I happened this afternoon, we both knew....me explicitly because it is my area of research and expertise....and he because there was a lilt in his step and a glow in his face.....
The road is still long and full of road mines as it always is for kids with real dyslexia....but today, we headed down that path towards confident and competent reading.....
As you might be able to tell....I am still smiling....and I will go to bed tonight with a smile on my face...and a glow in my heart that you can only know...when you have traveled on that rough road towards reading.....
Yes, I am high tonight...and now you know why.....I only wish I could share the video with everyone...but there are parents tonight whose hearts are lighter and who are also a bit "high"....as they know the glow in your heart that comes when you have traveled that rough road towards reading....
This child has been working HARD to become a reader but it has not been easy. He has watched his classmates and perhaps even a sibling pass him by...and yet WE did not give up on him even when he avoided reading like the plague.
Today, as I listened to him read, I grabbed the 21st Century equivalent of an notepad - my cell phone - and hurridly recorded a video to share with his teacher, last year's teacher and his parents. There were a few tears rolling down my cheek as he continued on after rereading the pages we had previously read together. He read on with such confidence - so enganged in the stoy ... and so confident of his emerging strategies that he did not even notice or comment on my cell phone....he was reading ...and reading as a reader...engaged in the text and transformed into the characters...and the setting...and the story....
"That was great," he noted when I had to send him back to class for "free choice" Friday...he did not need to ask for an eraser nor a pencil for his efforts today...nor did he need my specific praise for what he had done well...while he could not yet articulate what I happened this afternoon, we both knew....me explicitly because it is my area of research and expertise....and he because there was a lilt in his step and a glow in his face.....
The road is still long and full of road mines as it always is for kids with real dyslexia....but today, we headed down that path towards confident and competent reading.....
As you might be able to tell....I am still smiling....and I will go to bed tonight with a smile on my face...and a glow in my heart that you can only know...when you have traveled on that rough road towards reading.....
Yes, I am high tonight...and now you know why.....I only wish I could share the video with everyone...but there are parents tonight whose hearts are lighter and who are also a bit "high"....as they know the glow in your heart that comes when you have traveled that rough road towards reading....
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