For the love of Reading

Honestly, I'm having a hard time focusing on much else other than our little Bayler Bean right now, but I know I need to remind myself of the good things, too.  So, on that note, please keep Bayler in his thoughts and prayers.  Also, Ellie, another little girl with a similar battle, went to be with God today, so please keep Ellie's family in your prayers, as well.


So, on to good things, because even in the rain, God is still so Good.  Today, I had the pleasure of working with the Upper Room, an organization in KC that our church supports that provides tutoring and reading help to young elementary school aged kids in inner-city KC.  The program is designed to help them in the summer so that they are reading on grade level when school begins, and it has shown amazing success in the past.  I was excited to go today for my first time, and I ended up having a great time, as anticipated.  I arrived around 8:30 this morning (note to self: you still require caffeine in the morning if you plan to be functioning this early), and I was immediately paired with a little girl named Taylor, who was lots of fun and was actually a pretty good little reader.  We read a couple books and she took Accelerated Reader tests following each book- boy the pressure was on! I was just praying I helped her enough when we were reading so that she picked up on everything she was supposed to (She did great!).  She didn't even want to leave me when it was time to switch (gotta love that).  Following that, I worked with two little boys (lets be honest, quite a challenge for me).  The little boys couldn't read yet, so I got to read to them, and I was actually quite pleased with how well they listed for 5/6 year old little boys.  I do have to confess, though, that one of my kiddos had an asthma attack as we were wrapping up, which I apparently can't distinguish from a bad cough.  To my credit, I did ask him if he was alright and he said yes, but I felt pretty stupid that I didn't know what was happening (I think the teenage girl helping did mention he had asthma when she brought him over, but I certainly didn't realize that was what was happening- he was just fine after a breathing treatment, just for the record).  Overall, I had a great morning working with the cute little kiddos.  They were sweet and genuinely seemed to enjoy getting to read with someone one-on-one.  I look forward to going back next Wednesday and every other Wednesday through July.  Off to finish up dinner for the hubs and fam!  Have a wonderful rest of your evening!