Bryant

Bryant has been driving me crazy all year. He is constantly making noises with his mouth, has no concept of whispering, is physically aggressive with his peers, and always finds the rare quiet moments in my classroom to scream about his “caca”. I start every morning wondering what challenges with Bryant that day would hold.

But there are special moments I have with Bryant that make me want to stay up just a little bit later at night to find something that would help him learn. I had one of those moments in my one-on-one reading “group” with Bryant the other week. We were reviewing high frequency words. These words are common words that cannot be sounded out that students just have to memorize. (i.e. the, they, where) Bryant works on 10 words at a time until he reaches mastery. After many games and “tests” Bryant was going through his first set of words a few weeks ago and he was getting ALL OF THEM! Bryant looked at me with a huge smile on his face and exclaimed “I’m learning! I remember!”

There I sat, crying pathetically in front of my 6-year-old – excited for the words that he had learned but even more excited about his newly discovered belief in himself. You did it, Bryant, and I can’t wait to see how much more you can do.