Fernanda speaks to me mostly in Spanish. I must have asked her at the beginning of the school year how long she’s been in the U.S., but frankly, the first few weeks of school are devoted to learning names and deciding who will never again be allowed to sit together.
If I did ask Fernanda about her academic history, I quickly forgot the answer. After all, she’s not the only child in my class whose English is limited. I place her in the low reading group, nag at her to speak more English, and make a mental note to check her file.
School days are long, but school years are short, and a few months slip by before I ask Fernanda, possibly for the second time, whether she reads better in Spanish than English. My jaw drops at her response.
“I would read better if I knew what sounds the letters make.”
I corral Fernanda’s classmates into an independent activity, and I pull her aside. I start with a list of kindergarten sight words, but that proves to be an exercise in frustration, as she knows only eight of the first 25 words. I switch tactics, and we hover over her whiteboard, markers in hand. She’s not exaggerating; she can’t read because she doesn’t know what sounds the letters make.
“Preciosa, where did you go to fourth grade? How about third?” I’ve already written her story in my mind: recent arrival to the U.S., gaps — perhaps entire school years — in her education. I’m grasping for any explanation to help me understand how Fernanda got to fifth grade without being able to read.
When she tells me she’s attended local schools since second grade, I slam my hand flat against the table in frustration. Fernanda, understandably, flinches at the noise.
It is not my finest moment as a teacher.
I rush to reassure her that I am not angry at her. But, I add, it is urgent that she step up her game, both reading and speaking English. “You’re in the fifth grade,” I remind her. “This is your fourth year in the United States. You have to be able to get to the library and the bathroom, to sharpen your pencil and borrow an eraser, in English.”
Her eyes fill with tears. I’m not scolding her; I’m angry at myself for not catching this sooner. I’m saddened by her level of frustration. How can I reprimand her for spending too much of the day with her hands hidden in her desk playing with homemade slime or rearranging the markers and highlighters in her pencil box into orderly rows. She doesn’t understand what I’m asking her to do, and can’t do it even when she does understand.
I print out kindergarten worksheets for Fernanda to complete after school with me. Soon she can find the missing letters to complete “cat,” “rug,” and “pin.” She can write “like” and “from.” Peering over my shoulder one day as we peruse worksheets on the internet, she gasps with glee, “The -all family! That’s my favorite!” She leaves clutching practice pages –ball, small, tall, fall – and wearing a giant smile. As I watch her go, I’m moved by her joy, and yet angry at a system that has failed her.
In class, during reading, Fernanda is animated. “Don’t tell me the word until I ask you to!” she chides her companions. They’ve grown so used to whispering unknown words to her that they don’t realize she can read some of them on her own now. “I’ll tell you when I need help,” she insists.
She seeks me out multiple times a day. “Me ayuda a leer?’ I fix a stern eye on her until she realizes her error and asks in English, “Will you help me read?” Sometimes when she asks for help, I can’t give her my full focus, as I redirect Mark, remind Josefina that we don’t poke our neighbors to get their attention, give Sammy yet another pencil, or try to figure out on the fly if 9,652 is in fact the right answer as Gabriel asks me for the fourth time. Fernanda waits patiently, until she has my undivided attention.
Slowly, painstakingly, she reads, her stubby finger tracing her progress down the page. “Abigail did not go to school. Instead Abigail’s mother taught her to read and write at home. Abigail was a smart girl who loved to read.” As she finishes the page, she looks up at me proudly, and suddenly, both of our eyes are filled with tears.
I know she has so far to go. We have so much ground to cover and so much lost time to make up. Right now, however, she knows what sounds the letters make, and for this moment, victory is ours.
