Chapter 6: I Read Only Dog Books!: Engaged Reading for Students on the Autistic Spectrum

Mackenzie announced her arrival at our summer reading clinic by proclaiming, “I read only dog books!” Not a problem we thought, there are lots of dog books in a wide variety of genres; fiction, nonfiction, poetry, newspaper articles, magazines, and so forth. However, we quickly discovered what Mackenzie really meant: “I read only THIS dog book!” And this dog book was Dog Heroes of September 11th: A Tribute to America’s Search and Rescue Dogs by Nona Kilgore Bauer (2006), a stunning text published by Kennel Club Books. Like many students diagnosed with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD), fifth-grader Mackenzie was attached to this one book, read it hundreds of times, and had memorized most of the text. Understanding Mackenzie’s proclamation suddenly made our job more challenging. Mackenzie was attending the reading clinic to receive a comprehensive reading evaluation and intervention for delayed reading comprehension. Clearly, if we were going to earn Mackenzie’s trust, we had to begin where she was—with the rescue dogs of 9/11.