“I never thought of it that way.”

Amy Wu said that’s her favorite thing a student has ever told her.

She was excited because that student was 5, and kids that age are usually pretty self-centric and struggle to recognize their own capacities as learners.

Wu, 51, recently began her 28th year teaching kindergarten in Portland Public Schools, all but three years at Reiche, the diverse neighborhood elementary school in the city’s West End. After all this time, she still thinks “it’s like magic” watching students transform from unsure youngsters to self-sufficient readers in 175 days of school.

“It surprises me every year when reading happens, when success happens,” she said. “It’s pretty indescribable, and magic, and makes it all seem worth it at the end of a school year if that’s what we can accomplish.”

At Reiche, where 29 languages are spoken, Wu said her approach to teaching across those differences is simple.

“In kindergarten, we’re all language learners,” Wu said. “My teaching practices are for all students, no matter their language or ability.”

Grace Price said her son, Martin, was lucky to have Wu as his kindergarten teacher last year. He’s shy and drop-off on the first day of school was difficult. But by the second day, Wu’s calm demeanor and sense of humor had won him over.

“Just the mention of Mrs. Wu was enough to get him excited and in the door,” Price said.

This year, when Martin started first grade, Price said some of the challenges returned. But his first-grade teacher called Wu in for backup, and she sat with Martin until the new classroom didn’t feel so scary.

Wu said the constant newness of the kindergarten experience has kept her in the job for so long, as have opportunities to work with other adults: contributing to the district’s Wabanaki curriculum, developing the Portland Symphony Orchestra Explorers program to integrate music into early literacy lessons and training new teachers.

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