Right before the whole world shut down for the COVID-19, my daughter and Joey’s older brother were home from school so they both participated in my session with Joey. My daughter was thrilled to get to see Joey again and read the high frequency words along with him. I think Joey’s older brother may have been happier to have not joined our group of kindergarteners, but he was a huge help regardless.
I like to think I know Joey pretty well, although I often worry that sometimes I give him too much credit. It’s that sad special education teacher voice in the back of my head that whispers, you saw it once, but have you seen it 8 out of 10 times? How do you know it’s mastered? That voice forces me to be overly cautious sometimes, although even then I like to think I am responsive to Joey.
When I arrived at Joey’s house on Friday afternoon he was in a great mood. He was giggling and excited to read, and his personality shone throughout our whole session. We were reading The Gruffalo, which is about a mouse and an imaginary yet real scary monster. As we read about the scary Gruffalo with his terrible teeth in his terrible jaws, I tried to use it as an opportunity to model using body part words like teeth, tongue, knee, leg, back, etc. 
Have you ever heard the expression “As
Unfortunately, Joey and I were apart for almost a full month in April because I broke my ankle and couldn’t drive. It was wonderful to finally get back to see him last week. In just a month it seemed that he’d grown multiple inches! I was hoping that we’d easily get right back into our familiar pattern, and I hadn’t planned to do anything different or out of the ordinary during our sessions. 
