In Reply to: sm posted by BigM on March 08, 2006 at 09:10:06:
Literally, reading is the ONLY subject that gives him grief. Science, history, social science, history, ect; he does great in those subjects.
I've been making regular trips to the library with him, having him pick out his own books, with me picking just a few more for him.
The trying too hard to get the words right sounds all too familiar. He really does get easily frustrated when he can't get the words right the first time and gets aggitated when I have him slow down and try to process the words. What the teacher and I have been trying to do, and it seems to help a bit, is to let him finish the sentence he is working on and have him go back and reread it. I may have him read more than that, maybe the paragraph or page, and then go back over it with him so he can comprehend it better. His comprehension really isn't so bad if he gets his words right. It's getting him through those words with phonics and othe reading tools that causes him to struggle so much. :(
He likes cooking with me, and even though he protests, he'll read through the recipe with me to make things. He just doesn't like to read. It frustrates him too much. The fact he HAS to learn to read to survive in his upcoming world is what has me not back off too much. I try to give him a reading break every now and then, but I don't feel like I can afford to give him too much of a break, because it then becomes a problem getting him back into the swing of reading again.
The only tool I haven't utilized yet is audiobooks. I think if I have him reading along with a tape, maybe, just maaaaaybe, he can pick up at least some high-frequency words and get more out of reading that way. In church, I have a gentleman who typically reads a passage first thing in service, and since he is used to reading slow for the benefit of his 8 children, he has a tendency to read a little slower so that even Trey can follow along.
The concerns that the teacher and I have are that next year, there are no retakes; if he cannot keep up with the class in reading, then he'll fall behind in other subjects.
I don't know......I just don't know.....
I'll see what kind of an incentive idea I can come up with; you had some great ones. :) I'll tell you something that he actually enjoyed, and that was reading to his Nama over the phone. He is getting a little bit better about skipping over words when reading to her, but he's still not going to struggle for long. ;)