Amazing!

Last night I had an experience with Noelle that amazed me, maybe more than anything else she has done.
She has a science test coming up - it's on parts of a plant. It's prett detailed...honestly, if I had to take a test on it, I'd have to study.
When I saw what she had to learn, my heart sank.
I know that Noelle has been a bit down about school, because it's so hard for her this year, and I'm not sure yet how much help she is receiving.
I think she is still a bit intimidated by her new teacher - still some bonding to work on there - and I'm sure it's a challenge for the teacher as well - I know she's never had a ESL student before . The words are all harder and she's still got a long way to go in learning English. Every single subject becomes an English lesson - twice the work.
So when I saw how difficult the words were, and she not only had to learn them, but be able to identify their definitions, I'm not ashamed to admit that I wanted to cry for her.
But, I couldn't let that show. I told her to "study" it. She studied for about 5 or 10 minutes.
It was getting late, so I told her, "Let's have a test." I gave her a list of the words and then I read a definition and let her tell me which word it belonged with. She still couldn't say the words, so she would spell them to me.
Do you know that out of 16 words, she only missed 3 on the first try? And two of those three she got on the second try.
I couldn't believe it.
As got the next one and the next one and the next one right, I was incredulous. I actually started wondering if she was psychic and was reading my mind!
I keep going over it and over it in my mind and I can't understand how she could possibly have gotten them correct!
She couldn't read either the words or most of the definitions - so she had to have memorized what they looked like, then as I read them, sounded out what they looked like in her memory and told me which word matched.
However she managed it, it was amazing. And it gave me a glimpse of her future...once she has her English...there'll be no stopping her!
Blessings,
Lisa