Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Gun Strategy

So I've been sitting here with my computer open for almost the entire episode of The Biggest Loser trying to figure out what to write about. There are many things. Do I want to talk about all the good things that God is doing in my life? Do I want to be profound and talk about what I'm learning? Do I want to toot my own horn and talk about how well my classes are doing? Do I want to be a proud mama and talk about how well my kids are doing in school? Do I want to talk about how busy the schedule is right now? ...so busy that my husband and I have literally put family time and date time on the calendar.... Do I want to talk about all the baseball successes in our family right now?


no....


I want to talk about Jacob's TAKS strategy.

A little background. Over the past few weeks, Jacob's teacher and I have been talking about Jacob's reading strategy... specifically for TAKS. His reading grades have not been super over the last few weeks. He just has a hard time focusing on passages that are pages long! For goodness sake! He's NINE! Anyway.... He's been bring home 70's and 50's to correct over the last few weeks. Not great. So yesterday Paul took him out of school early and had a guys day. They went to the shooting range to shoot Paul's handgun and then to see Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodderick Rules. They both had a great time and this morning on the way to school Jacob and I came up with a new reading strategy.

It's called the Gun Strategy. It goes like this....

1. loading the clip = reading the passage the first time
2. putting the gun on safety = reading the passage again to gain understanding
3. taking aim at the target = reading the question and marking the paragraph for important information
4. Firing = answering the question correctly

So I let his teacher (WHO IS F.A.N.T.A.S.T.I.C.) in on the strategy and she thought it was a great idea because it speaks to Jacob and his interests. She also told me that he would have a couple of times to practice today. So this afternoon I get a text from Jacob/Paul with a picture and the caption "The Gun Strategy WORKS!"

Well....see for yourself!