sunshine

I have one student, some know him as Pudding, who is consistently sad at school. He is by far my lowest reader - right down there with the girl who spent most of her year in daycare - and he is easily discouraged.

Lately, I have started to really think about how we can help him get where he needs to be. He has "break cards" that he can use to go get water, go on the computer, or sit out of an activity for five minutes and that has made a huge difference. If he starts to loose his confidence, he takes a break. I also decided that no matter how sad he was in the morning, I would give him the biggest greeting I could muster. Without really thinking, I started calling him Sunshine.

Two days ago we were doing phonemic (sound) awareness, which Sunshine hates. It's in the morning, so he's grumpy, and it's a little above him. We were breaking words down into sounds (we call it chopping them up) and he was completely checked out.

"Next word is sunshine."

We made eye contact right away - he looked up so fast - and it was just the best.

He has come to school smiling the past two days.