{Tender Heart}

It's spring break which means nothing for me since we are in crunch time at the office. Less than a month to go! YEAH!! Lots of work to get done between now and April 17th!

It's the end of the second semester for Justin. He is doing so great in school! He has officially benchmarked for kindergarten and has started working on his first grade benchmarks which won't count until next year but it will just give him a little boost for next year. He's reading and is being moved to a first grade reading group and will start doing AR testing. With AR testing the students are required to read a book on their own and then take a test that evaluates their comprehension of the story they read! Can you believe it?!?! Sounds like I'm talking about a sixth grader or something! I'm so proud of him...not necesarly because he is excelling but just because he gives 110 percent when he is doing his school work.

My favorite story that his teacher shared with us is the story of his little friend Luis. Luis came to Hermiston with his mom in December. They moved here from Mexico and neither of them speak any English. Mrs. Mruk noticed that when ever they did group activities Luis seemed to always be near Justin. She changed the seating arrangements in class so Luis could sit by Justin in class. Now they are inseperable at school. They play together on the playgroud. Justin helps Luis in class and any time they have "free choice" they read together. Luis still does not speak a word of English but Justin has made a connection with him and he is making huge strides. What a tender heart my young son has! By the time she was done telling the story we were both crying!:)

I think the thing that struck me the most about the story was we knew about Luis but we had no idea that he could not speak English. I guess actions do speak louder than words!