Tuesday, August 9, 2011

100 Books for fun

Having a gifted dyslexic child can be challenging. He has compensated for his dyslexia in such a way that makes intensive phonics work seem unnecessary to him (until we get to phonics rule 50 or so and it becomes "new"). As a result, I needed something to encourage him to work with me and read, read, and read. Of course, he thinks he can already read. When tested a few months ago he was reading at the First grade, six month level. Not bad, but definitely well below where he should have been (he was in K at the time). I wanted to do something to encourage him to stick with me and for him to see light at the end of the tunnel as well as progress.
Looking through an Oriental Trading catalog I saw many resources celebrating " First 100 Days of School". Light bulb went off - lets read 100 books! With dyslexia, it is important to get kids to read, read, and read. It is also important that they read out loud and become comfortable with reading (reading aloud also lets the parent hear where they are struggling). So, we are doing the "First 100 Books". I got a an amazing cardboard train with 100 numbered large and colorful train cars. We will write the name of each book he reads aloud on a train car. We will start with simple Bob Books and work our way up to more complex chapter books.
I told him he got to chose a reward for reading 100 books. In typical, gifted child fashion, his chosen reward (and absolutely nothing was off the table) was to build a robot at night! His robot building has to be during the day, but he would like to be able to stay of late to build a robot as a reward. Not your typical reward, but it is motivating him to get started on his journey! If we are successful I will continue on to the next hundred. The moral of the story is to find a passion for your child as a way of motivating them to do the hard things. Reading a book out loud is a hard thing for a dyslexic child - if robots is what is needed to encourage my little guy to read 100 of them - I am all for it!

2 comments:

  1. That's awesome! I love the train idea. Great visual!

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  2. Beth - I really love these trains. They were very cheap (less than $10), but each train is big enough that I can write quite a bit on the back. I write the date, the name of the book, who he read aloud to, and if there were any errors or hesitations during his reading. I also started to throw in some spelling words (words from the book he read) and I can write the word, if he spelled it correctly (out loud), and if it was incorrect I can note how he spelled it so we can see how he is hearing the word (we are working on phonological awareness and auditory processing). I love it when a plan comes together - LOL!

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