Community...

Today was amazing.  I had tears streaming down my face as one of our special needs children sat in the author's chair during writing workshop.  You see, she came to kindergarden without language.  She could utter a few one word sentences, but didn't communicate verbally like other kids.  She also struggles academically--operating at around a kindergarden level in most areas this year.  She is one of the kids who receives classroom instruction but is also pulled out into the special education classroom to receive more instruction.  She also sees our speech pathologist with some intense work twice a week.  This has been her path for a long time. 

As a fifth grader, she is now able to use sentences to speak, but struggles to find a word at times.  She uses general words like "thing" and pronouns like "they."  Coming up with a specific noun is difficult and laborsome.  Socially, kids are kind, but it is tough for her to find close friends with so little in common and such vast differences in mentality.  She has never raised her hand to answer a question or spoken in front of her peers. 

Well, today was a HUGE landmark.  She has been in our classroom for instruction during the day more this year than last.  With some help from an assistant, she wrote a story about breaking her leg.  This is a big deal because she actually finished a piece.   But even more of a big deal is this:  today, as I asked if anyone had anything to share in the author's chair, she raised her hand.  The first time in a year for her to do so.  She got up there in the authors chair, read her story (written using her words and her handwriting) from her writing notebook, and beamed.  As is our routine, kids raised their hands to give her questions and appreciations when she finished.  She called each child by name, and each child stated something great about her story.  They used words like, "great description", "I could really see the cast in my mind", "the word choice of cabinet was good."  Ten children complimented her story.  Ten. 

I think she may share again...and maybe she will have a real audience in mind when she writes from now on.  Finding words may become a labor of love, rather than just a labor.