SUCCESS STEP 13: EAGER for MORE, MORE, MORE!

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In Down Syndrome Reading, Early Reading, Education, Teaching Down syndrome
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Time to Expand Your Child’s Reading Success!Balloon, child

Fun + Teaching Knowledge = Success. If learning to read is fun, your chances of success skyrocket.

We’ll look at what you’ve put in place with SUCCESS STEPS 1-12. You decide which elements your child is enthusiastic about,  expand those, and ease off a bit on the rest.

This is your Success Balloon: you keep puffing at it with reading triumphs, and it gets bigger and bigger. Success breeds success. (That’s a universal truth!)

Success also breeds confidence, which is huge for our children with Down syndrome. We want them to feel confident and believe in their own ability to succeed, which is our #1 reason for using errorless testing methods.

Your Child’s Success Plan

The plan has to be unique to your child, so take a look at what’s working, and–equally important–what isn’t.

More of What? Here’s HOW To Expand

BIG SUCCESS balloon

(Hidden message: maybe grandparents can help!)

Here are the elements we’ve got in place so far. Your job is to give a thumbs up (or down) to each of these elements. Do MORE of those that are working for your child; ease off a bit on the rest. Here’s how to do more of those that are working well:

  1. SUCCESS STEP 1: You’ve decided to opt for the only approach that works: commitment to working 5-6 days a week for 5 minutes 2x a day. NOW: Expand to 10 minutes 2x a day. This will be effortless as your child will begin to want more. It’s all about experiencing success, and the eagerness that generates.
  2. SUCCESS STEP 2: You’ve created a personal book or two (with relating flash cards). Make more. Teaching/reading the same personal book for a month is ‘way too long. Put fresh, fun reading material in from of your child to keep her eager to learn. Each book uses previous vocabulary and adds new.
  3. SUCCESS STEP 3: You’ve used “Lotto games” to increase both the fun and the reading vocabulary. Use more. Make a lotto game with family members or favorite animals, friends, TV characters, etc. Expand, but keep it personal so interest stays high.
  4. SUCCESS STEP 4: Are all the letter sounds and names learned? Remember to teach the sounds first, as that’s what will help with decoding. If your child is still learning them, search out new ways to teach the sounds. Look for more/different apps (roughly a bazillion out there). Mix it up.
  5. SUCCESS STEP 5: Review this step so you’ll be convinced that sight words still come first. They are easier to recognize, since it’s a graphic shape, AND it’s a word your child just loves (keep it personal, right? high interest), AND sight words are initially easier for 98% of children with Down syndrome. All the while, of course, you’re going for letter sound recognition.
  6. SUCCESS STEP 6: Use this “Frozen” example of a personal book to jazz up your ideas for more personal books.
  7. CoffeeCup.svg

    Speaking of addictive habits…here’s my favorite. (And probably yours.)

    SUCCESS STEP 7: You’ve formed an addictive habit that you can’t do without: Wahoo!!! Translation: you have managed to insert “teaching reading time” into your totally crazy schedule. If it ain’t a habit yet, go for addiction!

  8. SUCCESS STEP 8: This is where you check on the materials used in the classroom and ask for 3 little changes–if needed: large type size, high interest words being taught (high interest to your child, not others), and the”no rebus reading” request. If you haven’t explored this territory yet, gather your courage, saddle up, and trot into the corral to see what’s going on.
  9. SUCCESS STEP 9: This step was about adding REAL BOOKS into the mix so you don’t have to make so many books yourself. Special Reads is my answer to providing the books I so urgently needed 25 years ago when teaching my 5-year old Jonathan to read. In 1990, I had to make them all myself; now you can find both (frequently hilarious) picture books and Dolch high-frequency word books right on my site.
  10. SUCCESS STEP 10: You can skip this one! This was a humorous quiz to get you back on track. But most parents saw the words “pop quiz” in the title and headed for the hills. Ha! I learned my lesson on this one: never use a scary blog title.
  11. SUCCESS STEP 11: This was all about the effects of praise. So praise even more! It’s strong medicine for the struggling learner.
  12. SUCCESS STEP 12: Phonics is our added target now. If you’ve already checked out the 3 games I suggest in this article, go for more. There can never be too much fun in learning.

The Success Balloonballoons-latex

Bottom line: just keep puffing at that reading success balloon, unique to your child.

The magic comes when you see a subtle look cross your child’s face that says, “Whoa! I just read that. I can read? I didn’t know I could!!!” I have so often seen turned-off kids light up with their first realization of, “Hey! I can DO this!” It’s awesome.

Here’s to those moments coming soon to you and your child!

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