Seeing the progress - so motivational!

As this is my first year of teaching, I continually look at the milestones of my learners and celebrate even the little things!  Earlier this week during writing, one of my young learners was determined to write a story that, in her words "went onto the next page"!  Not only did she succeed, but she located all the high frequency words herself and I continually observed her reading back her story to see which word came next.  She was able to identify some sounds in unknown words and record these independently.  I was totally impressed with the story that she created but what totally blew me away was looking back in her writing book this morning and seeing what she was producing back in May (just three months ago) and see the progress she has made!  I'm sure I'd see similar gains in all learners if I looked back but its remembering to do so - it is so motivational for me as a teacher, and for the learners themselves to see the progress they have made!