How do you hold the book open?

Aster is starting to read chapter books and will hopefully be reading in the car as we travel this summer.

This exciting development has me wondering how he will turn the pages, when he has poor fine motor control and a limited range of motion with his right hand. I mentioned page turning at his annual IEP* meeting on Monday and the the team members** (all of whom we like) commented that they didn't include a page turning accommodation (which I had asked for last year) because he hasn't had any problems with the first grade readers and the occupational therapist had him turn pages in his office and he was good at it, with a glossy reader that opens flat on a desk.

Lupine, Colorado July 2017

Of course when we are travelling, Aster will not be reading glossy readers that open flat on a desk.  I gave him a cheap-paper paperback and asked him to show me how he turns the pages.  He holds it open with his left hand, squashes the book against his leg, sticks his right hand in and uses the left to turn the page.  It works.  And it is slow.  And it will probably be much slower in a moving car, perhaps slow enough to make reading a poor option.

I'm not going to make it to a good transition to my point, which is neither that my son needs an e-reader or that my son is exceptionally clever in figuring out how to turn pages, but rather something along the lines of noting where small set-backs happen (based on physical ability, race, gender, age . . ..).  Of course such small set-backs can be worked around, but they do add up-- and often compassionate consideration can lift the burden of such set-backs.

And since we are talking about turning pages, I want to alert you to what I have been reading lately.  Dear Mr. Henshaw Beverly Cleary's Newberry Award Winner, had most of the good parts of Henry and Ramona books (well written, kids seem very real, some funny bits) but none of the dated fake neighborlyness I remember.  It's pretty great. I'm sure I cried.
Julia Berry's Secondhand Charm didn't have the cool witch of The Amaranth Enchantment, but it was also magical and lots of fun-- with enough enchantments and women with unusual powers that I feel fine considering it a witch book. 
I've also read Camp Austen: My Life as an Accidental Jane Austen Superfan by Ted Scheinman and am stuck in Enchantress of Numbers by Tracy Chiaverini (a fictional autobiography of Ada Lovelace,  A mathematician daughter of Lord Byron who works on computer precursers is obviously a witch, right?) and just today read Lois Lowry's The Giver, but all of these deserve some more lines on the blog.

Awareness Month Point: 
Kids have strokes, too, with lifelong consequences, some of which are as simple as taking twice as long to turn a
page.

*Individualized Education Program.  The legal document which specifies what accommodations and services a special education student in the United States will receive.

**The annual (fewer than 365 days from the previous, so they have been creeping up a week each year) IEP meeting must include the special education teacher, a classroom teacher, a parent and an administrator.  In this case, it included all of the above, plus Aster's other parent, speech therapist, occupational therapist and physical therapist.  All documents must be signed by all of us.