It’s difficult for every student to make a first impression on a crazy night where we teachers are trying to look calm, cool, and collected as we meet new parents, answer logistical questions about buses and supply lists, hug last year’s alumni, and do our best to assuage the fears and anxieties the new students have as they anticipate a new year.
Aiden did.
I remember how he stood stoically, independently, out of arm’s reach of his mother and sister. Some kids who had already entered the room were exploring the shelves, bouncing on yoga balls, or touching anything within reach. Others stood huddled close to their family member, quiet and wary but with a hint of interest.
Aiden demonstrated neither the excitement and curiosity that would propel him into the room or the shy insecurity that would keep him close to his grown-up.
He looked upon the room with determined indifference, except for the slight scowl that drew his eyebrows together and gave away a hint of the suspicion he already harbored for the place.
I don’t think he spoke a word, to me or his mom, in the time he spent in my room that first evening, nor would he speak much in the upcoming two years we would share a classroom.
But so much in that silence would change.
As a second-grader Aiden already carried an “Early Intervention Program” label with his name. His student information card from the previous year’s teacher documented poor reading and writing, exceptional handwriting, a tendency to bully, and a love for art. He had already been served through our school’s intervention program with computer-based phonics practice and made little growth. He had acquired very few of his sight words and phonics checkpoints and tested well below grade level on end-of-year screenings.
I remember thinking, when Aiden sat down next to me to do our beginning of the year reading assessment, how awful this moment must be for him.
How tough he wanted to look.
How anxious he was that he couldn’t fake me out sitting here next to me. Couldn’t do the reading “dance” from across the room, holding the book, turning the pages, staying quiet until the timer went off. Not drawing attention to himself.
I listened to him struggle through part of a passage, made the necessary notes, and put the book aside. Afterward, I attempted to start a conversation with him, but it was mostly one-sided and I sent him back to his seat shortly after.
I was worried about Aiden.
I didn’t know how to reach him when he would immediately pull down the shutters every time he sat next to me. His pride seemed to be at the top of his list of priorities. He was embarrassed by his struggle to read. He knew what it meant when he had been pulled to work with an EIP teacher in previous years. He wasn’t fooled, and he hated it. And he was ready to beat the snot out of any kid who might point it out to him.
Aiden was angry at school and I couldn’t blame him.
Anyone who met Aiden could tell that he was bright. I had a feeling that his vocabulary and comprehension skills were well above his fluency and decoding, so I decided to try a new approach.
After a few weeks together, I called Aiden over to the conference table during silent reading. I handed him my iPhone, a pair of headphones, and the first Diary of a Wimpy Kid book. Copies of Diary of a Wimpy Kid had been circulating endlessly among our upper-elementary schoolers.
The first few editions of Jeff Kinney’s remarkable series were out at this time and the books were well-loved. Kinney’s groundbreaking departure from a traditional prose format with comic-book-style sketches was appealing to leagues of older elementary readers, especially those overwhelmed by a high volume of text on a page.
And of course, the books are hilarious, too. But the humor, particularly the sarcasm, takes a higher level of comprehension and even maturity to really understand.
By this point in the year, Aiden’s classmates and I had seen much of Aiden’s artistic talent. While his art was much more realistic, choosing to sketch cars and athletes with incredible detail and accuracy, rather than Jeff Kinney’s comic style, I thought Aiden would appreciate and enjoy breaking up the flow of words with sketches.
I told him that I’d just gotten the audiobook for Diary of a Wimpy Kid and thought he might want to check it out.
Aiden took the items from my hands with little enthusiasm, and I showed him the app and got him started. A few minutes later, the sweetest sound broke the quiet of our silent reading time.
A little chuckle.
Aiden was laughing!
I’ll tell you now that reflecting on Aiden’s laugh chokes me up a little as I write this. It was a sound that we didn’t hear too often, but it was so genuine that it makes me happy all over again just to think about it.
Throughout the rest of the year, Aiden read every book in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid Series he could get his hands on. As each one came available, I’d purchase and download the audiobook.
Eventually, Aiden learned to follow the words with the audio. This took time and practice, and sometimes, he would abandon the task of tracking the words and just sit back and listen.
How much did Aiden’s reading levels improve that year?
How many more sight words did he know by the end of second grade?
What was his fluency rate?
I don’t know.
I’m not sure I would tell, even if I could. I know that’s what we teachers need to prove ourselves and you, my friend, have probably gotten to a place where you know my perspective on that.
I know the school, the county, the state, the politicians who are judging the success of my students, my school, and me want a number.
But that’s not what I remember. And, in my humble opinion, it’s not what matters.
That laugh.
That’s what matters to me. Because here’s what it tells me:
Aiden was reading.
He was comprehending the story itself.
His sense of humor was sophisticated enough to understand the joke and its humor.
He was having a positive experience reading.
Aiden, that kid who had put up such a strong wall against school and all it represented to him that you could practically see it when he walked in the door, had a positive experience with reading.
And that positive experience is what I needed to start breaking down his walls. Only then could we really start building a foundation for reading growth.
I’ll tell you that Aiden’s numbers did improve. I’ll tell you that I went to bat for him over and over again for the next two years. Arguing that he was, in fact, reading, when he listened to his audiobooks. That this should be considered an intervention (it wasn’t). Sticking headphones on him and handing him yet another copy of DOAWK was not all I did for Aiden. We met daily for sight word practice. We read every somewhat high-interest book I could find that was on his instructional level for decoding and phonics skills.
He didn’t really like it. But he humored me. And he learned.
And, do you know what else happened? He wrote!
He started filling the margins of his stories with his drawings. His writing reflected his phonemic struggles, but he would use his word wall and his sight words. He started writing stories and asking to share them with me.
Aiden moved after his third-grade year. It broke my heart to see him go. I was lucky to spend two years working with Aiden.
Two years gave me the gift of time. I think that when we teachers are faced with the challenge of results within the window of the school year, we sometimes let fear get the better of us and start asking, “Why aren’t they making progress? What should we do? What interventions need to be used?” We sometimes do this before the student has had a chance to get his/her/their feet under them.
I learned from Aiden.
I learned from that moment when Aiden laughed aloud at a joke in The Diary of a Wimpy Kid.
I learned that we can teach the skills and strategies of reading, but all of that needs a place to go. It needs to go to a reader. We must focus first on helping kids become readers, whatever that may take.
Only then can we ask them to engage in the work; the phonics, the vocabulary, the comprehension that will help them grow.
