Matthew is READING!!!!

We are so excited and celebrating today! Matthew has made such wonderful progress! Today he read a story to his entire class! YES, he sat in front of the class, in a chair and read a story that he had just learned with his ESOL teacher. The class cheered and clapped for him! What a wonderful boost for Matthew. His excitement for school has just grown 10 fold. Not to mention the love he now feels for his ESOL teacher, Amy.
The story is a very typical, repetitive type for pre-readers...the main sentence is: "I go to the" with different places inserted. Matthew knows to go from left to right, uses his finger to point to each word and uses the pictures as clues! What a very bright boy he his. We are so proud of our son!
Also, I found out tonight that Matthew can read some Chinese. I am doing a small lesson on Chinese New Year for Analiese's class tomorrow and was putting my things together. Matthew saw one of the decorations and pointed to each Chinese Character and said, in Chinese, "Happy New Year". WOW! I so did not realize he could read anything in Chinese. This boy is so full of surprises.
Matthew is blossoming in so many areas. His language has progressed to some sentences. He asks lots of questions, asks for me to write words and then he copies them and he has started participating in conversations with us. He also volunteered to say the blessing before dinner the other night. He said, "Bless us, Amen"!!!
We are still getting use to the "boy" behavior, or at least I am. Analiese is active and talkative but Matthew is not only active he moves at 100 miles per hour! He makes noises, pretends he is a race car driver, a pirate and a cowboy all within seconds of each other!
After 2 months at home with Matthew we are getting more comfortable with our new places and routines. I have found that Matthew likes order and is uncomfortable if things are not neat and to his liking. His pillows on his bed must be a put neatly at the foot of his bed each night, not thrown (unlike Analiese who would just toss them on the floor). He doesn't care what clothes he wears but loves that he has choices!
Matthew told me the other night, "Mommy, I don't want to go back to Xiamen, I stay here." I asked him if he was happy and he beamed, "Yes"! He skips wherever we go, he talks to people now and he participates in activities.
We've decided NOT to retain Matthew in 1st grade next year. I know that it is only January but now is the time to start looking at progress and plans for second grade. Matthew obviously does not have any cognitive deficits and holding him back because of a language issue will affect him for the rest of his school career. Next year he will catch up and, hopefully, be right on target for 3rd grade!
Tommorrow we go to see the dentist and the speech therapist for Analiese and hope to "slip" Matthew in during the visit. I wasn't able to schedule the appointment how I wanted to but I know the doctors will do what they can to accommodate--that's how wonderful they are. We hope to get some idea of exactly what our next steps for Analiese will be. I'm in no real hurry to get started on Matthew's care as it is more important that he gets comfortable at school, learns english and becomes socialized!
Dave and I are bonding with this little boy more and more every day. We see the blessing that he is and know that the rough start we got tested our strength as a family. With the support of so many people we are seeing the sweet boy that is now our son!