Proud Mama

I feel like a proud proud parent.

Kengemma, who I have been "reading" with every once in a while,

sounded out a word by herself!

Let me back up by saying that Kengemma is in 4th standard.

She comes to me, puts her hands in front of her face, and says,

"Aunty. English study?"

Coming from a girl who once ran away embarrassed when I asked if she wanted to read with me, this is incredible.

Reading for Kengemma consists of spelling out every word letter by letter.

I'm pretty sure that she struggles with learning differences (for which the Indian school system, especially the government schools, have no accomodation); she may read an "I" in one word, but in the next word she sees that "I" as an "S" or "T". Words are just a bunch of letters for Kenge, and they hold no meaning.

I would love to video our reading sessions, because she is the absolute cutest. If she doesn't know a letter, she'll hold up her hand to keep me from telling her the answer. But then she'll get this sneaky look on her face and whisper, "One Aunty, just one tell me". Gosh darn it she is precious.

Each time we read, I try to get her to sound out one word. Only one, and then every time we see it I ask her to pronounce it after she spells it. It had been awhile since we read last, so the word last weekend was "the". Today, after we reviewed "the" a few more times, I moved on to "it". "Is" was on the next page, and because they were similar, I took a leap and asked her to pronounce it. With a little help, she figured it out.

But the grand finale came on the next page. The first sentence had "the". Check. The next sentence started with "It is in." I pointed at "It" and she pronounced it. Pointed to "is" and she knew. Then I pointed to "in", a word that we hadn't worked with before...and she sounded it out all by herself!

I started to cry. I caught myself, but the tears and the welling up of emotion in my chest were definitely there. Throughout the next couple pages, we worked on identifying "the" "it" "is" and "in". These sound like small victories, and they are, but oh so meaningful!