Reading Better Everyday · Friday April 20, 2007 by Abbie
On Thursday we went to see my friend who had a stroke last year and is house bound. Her son is off school at the moment due to a bad foot, so he is sort of being home educated. It does mean that the boys can get together now.
Mind you, you can tell that they both have Asperger’s Syndrome. I think they do interact a bit, but for most of the day they played on separate computers!
Being out on Thursday meant that Ram needed today to recover a bit. He did spend the morning playing Age of Empires as his friend had given him some cheats for it, then he went into what he calls default mode. Just watching TV. But there is a clear difference from a few months ago when he was in default mode. Back then it would have been The Simpsons. Don’t get me wrong, you can learn a lot from The Simpsons, but not when you have watched it so much that you can recite it word for word!
No, today Ram watched far more educational programmes. He wanted to watch Animal Olympics which was broadcast during the last Olympics, but it wasn’t the first programme on the tape so he watched the first programme which was about Jason and the Argonauts, then Animal Olympics and then a programme about the effect of steroids on humans.
During this time I made some more progress on the dreaded DLA form. Ram has been in receipt of DLA for two years, so we are having to have it renewed now. I find the form so depressing and time consuming to fill out. We were sent it two days before Christmas and I am only half way through!
One more traditional educational thing that we are now doing again is reading. Ram has decided that he would like to go back to reading the Ladybird Ram and Jane books again. We had stopped about half way through the series before Christmas. So for the last two mornings he has read a page. Interestingly, he likes to read it to himself now, rather than out loud. I always think this is a good idea because reading aloud actually uses different parts of the brain and can make it more difficult for a child. At school the only way a teacher had to find out how 30 children are reading is to listen to each one read. But at home with one to one I can take the time to ask questions to see if he understands what he has read.
Interestingly, after me asking him on Thursday about what he was reading, he didn’t wait on Friday but just told me straight away!
Another thing that I have noticed is that he is reading much faster. I read the page to myself at the same time and it used to be that I was finished long before him, but now he is nearly reading as quickly as I am!
It just goes to show that a child doesn’t have to do an hour of literacy every day to learn how to read better!
