Today I felt accomplished

So I teach 2nd grade but I spend an hour in the RSP classroom (found out it stands for resource specialist program... basically a trsting center- a quite room away from the busy classrooms to give more one-on-one time for the kids to learn better). I've been assigned to 4th grader Brian to help better his reading skills. He comes in from recess and I read a book to him while he follows along and then he reads the book to me while I follow along. We go through the 100 high frequency word flash cards with words like "was, as, their, were, this, said, which". When we first started 3 weeks ago Brian only knew 47 words, didn't know too many of his letter sounds, and was iffy on his vowels. Now there are only 2 words he has problems with and that's only because he says what he thinks it should be instead of seeing the letters in front of him. I got tricky on him yesterday and changed the order of the flash cards because I realized he has memorized them.

I tell him he can take as long as he wants and he can sound the words outloud because it's just him and me. When he struggles and gets frustrated, I've taught him how to break words like "together" down into more manageable words or how to sound them out. I find myself saying a lot of the things I remember my mom saying to me when I was in elementary school- "when two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking" or the rule about the silent E and how it reaches around to poke the first vowel so it can talk and say its name (see mom! I was listening!).

But I think the best thing was when the two RSP teachers who usually work with him came up to me this afternoon and told me how great he was doing. He shows up on time for our little lessons. He pays attention (which apparently he talks back a lot, gets up and walks around, or gets off task easily... I've never had that problem with him) and they actually notice an improvement!

I wish we had more time with the kids. Our last day is December 14 but their last day of school is the 17. I see a lot of random visits for those last 3 days.