Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Chapter Books for Kids with Autism Part One of Three

Last week I had a parent teacher conference with my eleven year old's teachers. He's doing fine in terms of assignments, but his teacher said that at the beginning of the year there were maybe six kids who did not really understand what they were reading. Then the class read Holes and for five of them something wonderful happened - one thing led to another in the story and they found the story compelling, they wanted to know what happened next and 
they comprehended the story. 
My boy? No. Not so much. This concerned her. And me.
"For some of the students," said this sympathetic and talented 
teacher (whom I really like and am freely paraphrasing here) 
"this was their first exposure to a chapter book. Not just picking it up and putting it down, but really reading it all the way through."
I know no house but ours, so presumably some sixth grader 
could have avoided actually reading every chapter of a book
until now, but not my sweetie. Here is his review of The Magic Finger from third grade:
Do you have a problem? You could fix it with a magic finger. 
In the book The Magic Finger, the girl uses her magic finger on her teacher Mrs. Winter and makes Mrs. Winter grow a cat’s whiskers because Mrs. Winter calls her stupid for spelling cat “k a t.” Mrs. Winter also grew a tail like this one. The book is in the magic fiction genre. In the story the girl uses her magic finger on the Greggs because she asks them not to hunt and Mr. Gregg laughs at her.  It’s exciting when the Greggs shoot their guns. Then the Greggs get tiny and grow wings while four ducks get arms and live in their house.  I like the picture where the Greggs’ wings have gone and their arms have come back and they are not teeny any more.
I think Brandon and other eight year olds should read this book because the girl is eight years old like me.
This is the book, The Magic Finger, Roald Dahl is the author.
-Spectrum Mom










1 comment:

  1. what would be good starting chapter book for my ki entering into 1st grade. she is not love reading but i want her to start slow and have interest. Thanks

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