A Reading Rainbow

Where's LeVar Burton when I need him?
I mentioned that my boy doesn't pick up
word meaning from context. In fact,
inference in general is a challenge.
If you want my son to learn something,
write out everything, make the context
explicit, not implicit.
But who does that? Well, Reading Rainbow
did the tv equivalent for featured books. 
Each show started with an introduction
for a book to put the book into the context.
LeVar drove a taxi for Taxi Dog. Then 
a reading of the book, then stories related to
the theme of the book, and finally more 
suggestions for books related to the same
theme reviewed by kids. 
This is exactly the kind of book exploration
many readers need.
One of the biggest challenges for my son
is knowing what part of the book other
people find important (he thinks the 
number of pages is most important-really-
he checks on that first). Reading Rainbow
pulls out the themes of a book and says-
"Hey! Focus on this." And he does. For 
the length of the show at least.
And PBS not only stopped making episodes,
they don't even show the old ones!
My husband feels there's a real need for
a PBS Old School Channel.

Fortunately, the library has DVDs with 2
episodes per, and as you see above, Amazon
offers a set too.
In case you're just looking for a book
recommendation, Taxi Dog is a fine rhyming
picture book for younger readers. Both the 
rhymes and the animal narrator should 
endear the book to many kids with or without
autism.
My son also loves rainbows, another reason 
I'm a
-Spectrum Mom