Maddy's Journal 4

While reading "Lives on the Boundary", I was reminded of an incident that happened last semester in GASP. One of the students I was working with was struggling with reading. He didn't want to read and was embarrassed to read out loud. I noticed this one of the first weeks and began thinking about how I could engage him like Mike Rose with his group of students in the cafeteria. One day I was running some errands at Rite Aid and saw some stickers. I thought maybe stickers would make him feel good about his reading and give him something to shoot for. So that afternoon we sat down to read a book and again he protested that he couldn't read. After much struggle we made it through a book and I pulled a sticker out of my pocket and gave it to him. I absolutely loved it and put it on his shirt. He asked, "how do I get more stickers?" I told him that after he reads a book he gets one sticker. He proceeded to pick out more books to read and at the end of the day had 3 stickers on his shirt. When it was time to go home he showed his friend his stickers and told him if he read too he would get stickers. We announced that he read 3 books and the class applauded. He has the biggest smile on his face. He was so proud that he asked me to tell his mom how many books he read when she came in to pick him up. For him, the stickers were something to shoot for like points in a game. He could see what he accomplished. He is in GASP this semester as well and this week (after I hadn’t seen him in 2 months) without even asking him to pick out a book, he when to the shelf and picked one out himself and sat down ready to read by himself.