Celebrating a great year!

Dear Parents,

I wanted to take a moment and celebrate all the wonderful things your children did this year. I am so glad you shared your kids with me as it has been an amazing year.  I have watched each of your kids grow so much and I am absolutely thrilled at all of their progress.

Here are a few of the highlights this year, I watched our kindergartner make so many friends that other kids actually argued about who could stand in line with him. I watched him seek out communication with those peers.  I watched our second graders become readers. They all moved from just recognizing letters and words to really reading and understanding the sentences that they read. These second graders started sounding out words with their communication devices and voices. It was exciting to hear kids produce sounds that had been so hard just a year ago. One of our second graders, went from barely talking last year to talking my ear off this year. What an amazing feat! Our third grader, showed me how sly he was and began to answer questions correctly with his communication device or pointing it out. His classroom teacher celebrated while doing grades because she saw his academic growth and was excited to be able to report on his report card this year. Our fourth graders did not disappoint either. One made great growth in reading but even bigger growth in math. Showing that she could visualize the math in her head and showed me how excited she was to try multiplication. Our other 4th grader learned how to use initial sounds to find words on his communication device and enjoyed teaching others how to do this as well. Our 5th grader, not only can read faster than I can using his communication device but was able to conquer new challenges like trying roller skating for first time!

This is my 20th year as a teacher and this year I was able to share my teaching with two student teachers, 2 brand new teachers from other schools and 1 aspiring high school cadet. All of your kids helped them learn and grow as well.  In school, so many times we are taught that disability means can’t and your kids all have proved that that is not the case.  They can and they did. I am so proud of each and every one of my students.

I hope you all have a great summer.  Please continue to watch my blog as I will update throughout the summer with summer activities.

Sincerely,

Ms. Tisher