sunshine, lillipops and rainbows everywhere

Cloudy with a chance of meatballs. My brother loved that book and often checked it out of the library in Fairhaven. However, Sammy seems to have some sort of mental block with reading. He CAN do it word by word but insists he cannot. I am struggling (along with the Special Education teacher) to figure out why. I want him to love books like I do. I want him to find his imagination wrapped in  a book and create authentic enjoyment for them. He needs an outlet for that incredible imagination he has locked inside his amazing intellect. It's dying to get out, I can see it bouncing around in there when I look into his eyes, much like a super bounce ball in a small room.

He does however LOVE the movie of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. How can I turn his love for movies into a love for reading? Is that fair? I hate the reward/token economy that we often fall into with Sammy. I feel it's taking away an intrinsic need to be a good person and replacing it with stickers and dollar store treats. It works, for now. Will he ever get to a point where it doesn't work anymore? What then? I guess that is a bridge we will cross when we get closer. Right now we are just to busy climbing the mountain to worry about it


He went off to school today chipper and woke up full of The Awesome ( http://blog.pigtailpals.com/20
11/08/waking-up-full-of-awesome/)