Tad, Reading

Here is an update on Tad’s reading…

He’s doing really well.  During this last snow break, he got so antsy and upset about being stuck at home that I actually brought out a book I’d been hiding in reserve for him – it was a Biscuit the puppy beginning stories collection, similar to this one, but the one I had was from years ago that I bought off the bargain clearance shelf at Barnes & Noble.

He’d never laid eyes on this book before, and he could read the first two stories cold, only tripping on the word “Biscuit.”

(Which, when one comes to think of it, is a very interesting word.)

His skills are progressing at such a rate that he’s reading random things, like commercials and ads and cereal boxes.  I know that he’s picking up more from his favorite shark books, even making the attempt to actually read the names of sharks, instead of just identifying them by their picture.  He takes a great interest in reading signs, especially ones that are associated with places that he always goes, like the waiting room at the Autism Center.

And forget trying to spell words in front of him (or Ane) anymore.  I miss that.

He is continuing to join the general ed kindergarten class for reading groups twice a week.  Midori, the para that had initially been assigned to go with him (who I mentioned here in a previous post) to the gen ed class, was reassigned to another child, so Tad’s teacher, Mrs. McN, told me that she was trying to figure out how to keep sending him, since she needed all her paras in the classroom and couldn’t spare one to just go with him without getting extra help.

That gave me a brain wave.  So I made a phone call, then emailed Mrs. McN with my idea.

Grandma is now volunteering in Tad’s class twice a week, staying in the room to help while one of the other paras takes Tad to the gen ed class for reading.

Even with his most recent round of regressions (a bad combination of snow days and sick days) that is triggering spontaneous meltdowns at school, Tad is doing very well in the gen ed class.  Mrs. McN wrote in her note home yesterday that she’d done some one-on-one reading with him in class, and that he’d done very well.

You know, for a child with a significant speech delay, his reading abilities just knock my socks off.

And now Rerun is trying to one-up his brother – he can now identify the letters B and T.

Uh-oh, here we go…

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 1st, 2012 at 12:55 am and is filed under Autism Adventures, Children, School Days.
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