Interesting Reward

Okay, I had to share this. Brandon *hates* reading, and we stumbled upon something interesting that actually seems to be motivating. He mentioned that he wished he could just rip the book up. I told him that after he reads the last page, I would let him destroy the book however he wanted to. He could rip it to pieces, or cut it up into bits. . . or crumple all the pages one by one. He started getting pretty creative with the way he'd like to destroy it and we agreed that Karlon would even help him burn it if that's what he wanted to do with it when he was done. He brightened at this and began his reading with fresh motivation. I never thought about it before, but it's a rather fitting reward for a kid who hates to read as much as he does. This time he happens to be reading a raggedy old very, very used paperback copy of Farmer Boy (the book has already split in two and the front and back covers are missing), so no worries about destroying this one. But from now on, I guess I'll have to make sure all the books he reads are old and tattered from the get-go.

Ashley, on the other hand, (although she also doesn't care for reading), considers every book a memento of major accomplishment and adds it to her personal library in her room when she's finished. . . so I always purchase the best of the best hard-cover books for her. The quality is good motivation for her.

. . .And I've discovered the wonderful world of "read-aloud edition" books. The pages are exactly the same, only blown up to 8.5 x 11 size. I'm collecting them one-by-one, as I find them.

And rewards. . . Jon likes rewards. He's a lazy reader. If it's not a sight-word, he coughs or falls down like he's too sleepy to read. I told him he would earn a point for every word he sounded out that wasn't a sight-word. That little stinker read for an hour - happily! . . .and earned 75 points. . . .and woke me up again in the morning wanting to read some more. (100 points gets a toy he's been wanting forever).

Well, it's back to work today. We eased back into the swing of things last week, but it's back business this week. We counted and Ashley only has 50 more days left! I don't think anybody is more ready for summer than me!