Warning: Contents May Be Heartwarming

She was one of the students in the very first reading camp I ran here in San Antonio. It was the summer of 2004 and she had just finished third grade. She would go on to become one of my all-time favorite students as I continued working with her during the school years and summer before I left San Antonio in 2006. I still use a coffee mug that she painted for me for Christmas when she was in fifth grade. (I know the grade because she wrote her name and 5th on the bottom.)

She was back for camp last summer, almost as tall as me. When I talked to my former boss about coming back this summer, she said they weren't running camps this year, but she had some individual students for me. I was so happy to hear that this girl was among them.

In fact, she represents the bulk of my schedule this summer. I'm working three days a week, Monday-Wednesday. I see her for three hours each day. Now, imagine that you have to spend your summer afternoons sitting in a room with just one other person for three straight hours doing the thing that is most difficult for you. How would your attitude be?

She's a teenager now, going into ninth grade, which I cannot believe even a little bit. But she is, in most ways, very much still a child. If I phrase it, "Now we get to do spelling!" she's excited to do it. If I tell her that she's especially good at breaking multi-syllable words then she can't wait to show me how well she can do it. She has only complained about one thing in the nine hours I saw her this week, which was having to draw pictures on her vocabulary cards. Drawing is extremely difficult for her. Once I told her that I'd draw the pictures if she'd write the definitions and sentences, she liked doing those again. She's pretty much the ideal student.

Except that it can be hard to see her struggle. And it can be frustrating to watch her miss words that I know she knows. She has multiple delays and diagnoses, which mean that she struggles with pretty much every facet of reading. When she gets reading too fast, she'll just sort of make up the words as she goes. In a weak moment last summer, I threw my head and hands on the table, shouting, "[NAME], YOU ARE KILLING ME!"

She is doing so much better this year. We're reading Stuart Little. We go through each section, pulling out unknown words so she can figure them out before reading, and then she reads for me. When she substitutes words, she often stops and goes back because she realizes that it doesn't make sense. This is huge. This will revolutionize her reading. Her comprehension is still low, but it was nonexistent before.

We stopped after reading so I could write a note to her parents, telling them how very well she's doing. They are wonderful people, realistic, yet hopeful. They don't want me to fix her, but they do want her to reach her potential. I read her the note before handing it to her, and despite some difficulty in keeping track of things, I'm pretty sure she'll get it to her parents.

I guess all of that is to say, I had a good day at work. I thought I'd let you know.