Speechless

Working with dyslexic children can have its moments. Usually, the daily drudgery of reading takes all the fun out of class, no matter how hard I try to "spice things up" in our canned curriculum. It is serious business, not being able to read in school, and by 3rd or 4th grade, there's just not a lot to celebrate.

Add to that the mindset of my district that says every couple of weeks, we shut down the campus for hours at a time and put a novel in front of kids who struggle to see if they've made incremental progress since the last time we tortured them. (Do I sound angry yet?!) So, this week, while I was home throwing up from food poisoning, the latest Benchmark test was administered.

The great State of Texas allows dyslexic students to take a "bundled" test - Proper nouns, questions and answer choices are read aloud to the students, while they read the passages on their own.(4th graders who read on a 1st grade level, mind you.) There are three passages on each Benchmark, so the first two are covered on one day, the third on the next day. This is to cut down on the exhaustion factor of doing it all on one day. My experience has been that they work hard the first, not-so-hard the second because they know once it is finished, so are they.


So. Today my first group of 4th graders come in, and Joshua chirps up - "I know my Benchmark grade!" Now, Josh is quite a charmer; I think I've referred to him before. We get seated and as I gather my materials while not even looking at him say, "Yea - what is it?" He's a pretty smart kid, so I figured he passed, but was not prepared for his answer.

In my school, two teachers team together; one teaches Language Arts; the other, Math.

"My teacher says that out of the two classes in her team, I made the highest grade. I missed one."

I looked at him, speechless, trying not to cry. "Not even Will, the smartest kid in the 4th grade made as good as I did!" And I sat. The other two in the group kept staring at me, for I'm never without words. I wanted to hug that kid and let the tears fly, but I couldn't. It would have freaked him out, and I frankly don't think even I understood why it felt so good. We just locked eyes, and I said in my choked up voice, "Josh, I'm so really proud of you." He smiled his goofy grin, we started class, and that was it.

I just wish I could've seen his mom's face when he told her!!