When my DSS was learning to read (He has ADHD, but is not gifted) it was always drama and fighting.
I suggested that instead of hard consequences for drama, we impose soft ones that weren't so jarring.
If he did his 15 minutes of reading without fighting, he could watch his 30 minutes of cartoons. If there was fighting, he could still watch the cartoons, but we muted them and put on closed captioning.
It really helped him, actually, because it applied his theory of "ill learn to read, really, I promise" and we said, "we will make sure of it" without it being punitive. And he still got something he wanted, we just met him halfway.
