Reading Rewards

Over the Holidays I had some shopping rewards points that weren't being used.  I could just let them sit there and accrue to one day be able to redeem for an appliance of some sort that I'd hardly use and take up room in a cupboard - or I could redeem them now for some extra reading material for my son. 

I was able to redeem for some beautiful travel books and an atlas as well as a magazine subscription to a kids gaming magazine.

The travel books he liked and received a month ago and we will use them in our studies, but the most rewarding (pardon the pun LOL) has been the magazine subscription.  Today the mailman delivered this months issue and my son has sat for the last two hours reading it from cover to cover.  While the contents is not exactly educational, the fact he is reading is a great thing.  

I have a child who was never a good reader and that had a big domino effect in the area of spelling and writing.  He hated them because it was all too hard.  In the last year, he has gained a love of reading and become really good at it.  It has in turn meant he is able to spell more words (and attempt to spell words!) and has less anxiety over writing. The more I get him to read, the better his overall English skills become.  So I try to fit reading into as many aspects of our day to day routine, often by stealth.  I find the key is to find things that are essential to the days activities OR to peak interest, or both if you can manage it! 

So my 10 year old, who loves gaming, cartoons, comics, lego, superheros and all things geek, is very excited about getting his K-Zone magazine today :)  When I told him he will get one each month this year he was very impressed.  I think there was even a happy dance or two LOL. 

One added bonus to this monthly reading reward, is that there is a jokes page.  My son loves jokes and puns.  He has Aspergers so can often find them tricky and sometimes misses the meaning, so practicing with jokes is good.  Luckily for me, the jokes in this magazine are easy to understand and actually very funny for a set of kids jokes.  

So from now on, when I collect my 'rewards points' from buying our weekly groceries, I am going to save them up and redeem them for more reading materials. Given that we are on a very tight, very limited budget and dealing with a child who has aversions to library materials (his ASD/OCD issues mean he hates the germ factor he associated with library books), this is a good way to add to our library without spending more money.