Let's Draw! And then read.

Drawing is like making an expressive gesture with the advantage of permanence.
Henri Matisse

Today, I decided to start a project that he can put up on the bulletin board. That blank spot under his name was simply getting to him. Because I have him in class, I knew he liked to write words "graffiti" style, I had him write some of his vocabulary words on index cards in graffiti style with a picture to help represent the meaning. He really enjoyed this activity. Ironically, he tended to choose words which had the easiest letters to draw. Go figure. For our think aloud activity, I was excited that at different points in his reading he would comment "whoh, whoh", which made me happy, because with that one sound, he was showing understanding and learning. He also was able to connect schema from my Social Studies class! The book mentioned several countries and continents, and at different points he thought aloud and told me where the places were. I could see the maps lighting up in his head to tell him where the places were. The trick for the next few sessions will be to engrain the think aloud and questioning procedure in him, in the hopes of him feeling "blissful" about reading. We shall see.

Quotation Citation : http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/drawing_2.html

Image Citation: My Student.