I’ve had this idea banked for a while. It was a moment that I wanted to have captured.

I was working in my office when I got a text from a kindergarten teacher. “Do you have a minute to come down for a celebration?” I stopped whatever I had been doing. There is always time for celebrations.

I arrived at the classroom, not knowing what I would be celebrating, only to learn that C had made a lot of progress on reading smoothly. He was no longer reading like a robot and he wanted to read to me. I listened to C read. I smiled a lot. He smiled a lot. We celebrated together. It was great.

As we wrapped up, C went to put his things back into his book bag. He showed me a tool he had made. On the corner of a neon orange piece of paper, he had created a visual to help him know which way his bs and ds go. There was a capital D -> d and B->b. “What a great tool!” I exclaimed. “You should make a few more of those for the writing center. I know a lot of your friends who could also use that tool.” C’s eyes lit up. “I have some bright paper in my room. You can borrow some any time,” I said.

I could tell C was eager to get started, so after checking in with his teacher, we walked down to my room to get the paper. C decided he wanted to make a tool for all 17 of his classmates. So we chose the colors and used the paper cutter to make 17 rectangles.

When we arrived back at the classroom, it was choice time. I told C we could put the paper somewhere safe for him to finish another time. But, he found a pencil and got right to work. I left, taking one last look at him working, piling up tool after tool.

I didn’t think about C and the tools again until I returned to the same classroom, working with a small group of readers. We were doing some writing, and one of the students paused in the middle of his work. He scurried over to his reading spot and pulled something from his reading bag, a bright green rectangle. He had been unsure of which way his b went, but thanks to C, he had a tool for that.