This kid came from Mexico and has had an extremely hard time. I won't go into details here, but it was bad. The shock of it all only kind of wore off at the end of the last school year so this was his first real year of school where he was engaged and trying. My partner ESOL ninja teacher has been doing everything she can for the poor guy and somehow something finally clicked. They were reading about cattle and roping and he got excited and started talking about how his dad had taught him all of that. She got a bunch of stuff on rodeos and roping for them to read and he's hardly shut up since. It's great. She finally told him that if he did well on his sight word test last Friday, he could even rope her. That smile on his face made her whole year.
