text: why be a teacher?   the moment when the student's eyes light up, the light bulb "pops" over their head, and they start getting excited about learning.  as a special ed teacher working with students (ages 6 through 11) with learning disabilities, this is especially the case.... the student's confused excitement when i hear the startled shout, "miss, i didn't read it, i just knew what it said!"   to most ld students, "reading" means the decoding struggle, not the understanding of the text. when the decoding finally smoothes out....  it means that, finally, the student has started to bypass and compensate for his/her learning disability, and has "broken the code" as an emerging fluent reader.   i have a bin full of "give-away" books of all genres and subjects, for the new reader to select from for home leisure reading.  it means that someone's future just brightened... college instead of flipping burgers for a living their whole life. i also have a whole bunch of handouts about ld and college.