Having a husband and child with dyslexia, I am a bit sensitive about summer reading clubs that reward readers for the amount of books read or requiring a report to receive a prize. However, I am at a loss on how to encourage these persons to participate in a summer readining club.Both my husband and child like to read, but they can take up to a month to read a book that others could easily read in days or a week. I have thought of including audio books in the club (we have some great Henty books as well as many Focus on the Family dramas). My husband lime the idea, but thought that there would be some kids who claimed dyslexia and listened to the audio books just to get the prizes and not read the book when they could.Any other ideas?
Views: 1
You need to be a member of Church Librarians Network to add comments!
As a former children's librarian with the public library system, we wrestled with the reading records and the difference between short and chapter books for years. Our solution was to ask each child to decide how long they felt was a reasonable time for them to promise to read each day. For some, 15 or 20 minutes was a stretch, for some 2 hours was not. Each day they kept their promise they got to colour in an icon on the page where they wrote down the book they read (there were 7 lines per page, one for each day of the week). Every time they started a new book they wrote down the title, but if they were continuing with it then they just pit in ditto marks. We also encouraged reading aloud to younger siblings (or pets) or being read to (both counted). No competition between children, but challenge to self.
Laurie, I'm sorry I'm not able to upload the sheets. The program was used in the public library I was working in at the time. I remember that the page with the clocks was on a poster board type of paper, and the children brought it in with them each time they came to the library. The sheets were supplied to the individual libraries by our system. They actually were quite simple though, so a person could make up a master copy and reproduce it. The title of the program was on the top and twelve circles divided into quarters completed the page. Each quarter of the circle stood for fifteen minutes read. The directions about using the sheet were on a different sheet that the children got when they signed up for the summer reading club. It really worked for us to do this because slow readers or those who wanted to read very long books had an even chance to get prizes. Prizes depended on what we could get from the community and actually were quite simple. At the end, every child who finished was able to select a book from a bin that we kept stocked for that purpose.
My grandson, a dyslectic, finished college with half of his masters and so he only took one year to get the masters! I say this to encourage you to read his books aloud and the library gives credit the same as if he "read" it. Just as blind people "read" by listening to tapes, or the dyslectic listens to his grandma or his parents read aloud. This is a great pleasure shared, and this way there is no need to make any distinction at all in the readers for your child can read dozens of books in this way.
Deanna King > Maxine Johnson Bersch LovernApril 13, 2010 0:55
We've only done two summer reading programs, but we have always counted someone reading TO the child the same as the child reading it him/herself.
We wanted to encourage family time focused on reading, but now, after reading these posts, I'm glad we've done it that way to help dyslexic children as well!
I use an Upstart Reading Club. Children keep a reading record of the books they have read. We have a "public display" in the hall outside our library on which each child has a "poster." They get a sticker (usually ones that go with the reading club) for each book they have read. So they are only competing with themselves. During a Sunday Night worship service ALL the children are given a book, their certificate and recognition. They are given a book bag with the theme of the reading club, all stand at front, have their picture made etc. I have NEVER given prizes. My philosophy is that, "Reading is its own best reward."
We solved this problem by having the children keep track of the time that was spent reading. Children were given a sheet with clocks marked in fifteen minute increments, and they filled in the quarter hours with markers or crayons. Prizes were given after a certain amount of time that was spent reading. I'm not remembering now, but I think there were twelve clocks on the page. Prizes were given after two hours, four hours, etc., were completed.
Hope this might work for you.
Replies
We wanted to encourage family time focused on reading, but now, after reading these posts, I'm glad we've done it that way to help dyslexic children as well!
Hope this might work for you.