*Happy dance*

My absolute favorite thing about teaching is simple: I love it when my kids learn. I know that sounds cliche, but it's true. When I see a student do something that I know they couldn't do before, and the reason they can do it is because I taught them to, it makes me want to do carthweels and backflips (if I knew how to do backflips, which I don't).

I have a student in my class who is just as sweet as can be. He came to me from an English-only classroom, so making the transition to a bilingual one came with its challenges: for one thing, he knew exactly 0 vowel sounds in Spanish, which quite literally makes reading impossible.

I realized today that last time I did a basic skills test with him (part of our RtI) was a month ago, so I thought I'd re-do it and see how he's progressed since last time. I was quite pleasantly shocked! Since September (first test), he's gone from knowing only 9 syllables in Spanish to knowing 30 (out of 36), and from knowing 2/20 sight words to 14. WOOHOO!! I told him how he'd progressed and he grinned from ear to ear, as did his mother when I shared the good news with her.

This kind of news makes me want to get up and dance around. In fact, excuse me for a moment.

*Gets up and does happy dance*

Okay, I'm back now. I am so proud of him! And I have to say, I am proud of myself, and of my AE, and of his mom for helping him get to where he is now. My kid can read!