Honk Your Hours

While reading a book about cars, Jensen was doing a great job until he came to a sentence that said "Honk your horns". He read it as "honk your hours". I had to keep from laughing because it just sounded funny, but it reminded me how different he sees the world and what a challenge reading is for him.

I'm happy to say that he's getting it. With lots of practice and direct instruction, his reading has improved. His fluency is better and he is remembering words when he sees them later in the story. Even though his progress is slow, it is in a positive direction....what more could a mom ask for???

Sitting on My Phone in Concrete

I'm sure the title of this blog caught your interest...it is a rather funny story! My family was in the car one day and Mike asked me if I had received a specific email response. I said, "No and I have been sitting on my Droid all day." From the back seat came, "sitting on your phone...won't you break it?" Mike and I started laughing and I said in a whisper to him, "I forgot how concrete the dyslexic mind is." From the backseat came, "why were you sitting on your phone in concrete?". I just didn't quite no how to answer that one. Anyway, it was a good laugh!

Silly Bandz Aren't So Silly

The Silly Band craze has struck the Barrett household, but in a very different way. We have learned just how motivating Silly Bands can be. As I mentioned in my last posting, Jensen is working on a 100 book challenge and building his vocabulary is part of that adventure. When we are reading, I write down words he doesn't know on index cards and then we play our favorite sight word game, called Three Strikes and You Win.

Here's how the game works, once we have a stack of cards, say 20 cards or more, I show the cards to Jensen one at a time and if he says the word correctly I place a "X" on the back of the card. Once he has three "X's" on the card, he gets the card. The Silly Bands come into play after he has earned five index cards. Then, he gets to stick his hand in the bag and grab a Silly Band. Last count he was up to 25 Silly Bands. What a fun way to build a vocabulary!!!

In case you are wondering where we got

the game, we saw this in 2007 at a reading workshop we attended at Buck Lake Elementary called Building Better Readers. The Families Building Better Readers workshop was sponsored by Just Read, Florida!