By Natalie Hale
Posted TEACH THEM TO READ WITH WHAT THEY LOVE
Here’s one for the books (pun intended) My “significant other” seriously disliked reading as a child. He avoided it. Then in third grade, he discovered Mad Magazine. OMG! The [...]
By Natalie Hale
Posted COMPREHENSION ROCKS. BUT ONLY IF WE TEACH “READING FOR MEANING.”
What are we teaching our kids? Our teens? As a teacher, this is what I often see when a desperate parent brings a teen to me because he/she missed the reading boat: I see a learner who was pushed [...]
By Natalie Hale
In Down Syndrome Parenting, Down Syndrome Reading, Early Reading, Education, Personal Books, Personal Pages
Posted HOW TO LOOK THROUGH YOUR CHILD’S EYES — AND BRAIN!
WHAT DO THEY SEE? Much of the difficulty our children have with learning to read has to do with how that material LOOKS to them. But how do we know how it looks to them? Doesn’t it look the [...]
By Natalie Hale
In Down Syndrome Reading, Early Reading, Education, Personal Books, Reading Resources, Teaching Down syndrome
Posted PERSONAL PAGES: Your 5-Minute Alternative to Personal Books
PERSONAL PAGES You know I’m a serious soap-box champion of personal books, right? Yes. Forever. But here’s an alternative I use at nearly all of my teaching sessions: PERSONAL PAGES. [...]
By Natalie Hale
In Apps for Reading, Down Syndrome Reading, Early Reading, Education, Personal Books, Teaching Down syndrome
Posted PERSONAL BOOKS: IT AIN’T THAT HARD. REALLY.
PETE AND REPEAT I know I’ve talked about this forever, and here it comes again!!!! Why am I writing about personal books again? Because it is so incredibly important to an emerging reader. [...]
By Natalie Hale
In Down Syndrome Reading, Early Reading, Education, Fast Flash, Older Emergent Readers, Personal Books
Posted WHAT NOW? MY 10-YR-OLD IS ONLY A “PARTIAL READER”, AND STUCK.
If your child is 10, 12, or 18, and this is the case, I wish we could say that this was unusual, but it’s not. Let’s look at how this happened and fix it. The Causes Chances are high that your [...]
By Natalie Hale
In Down Syndrome Reading, Early Reading, Education, Older Emergent Readers, Personal Books, Reading in the classroom, Teaching Down syndrome
Posted You Want Me to Read WHAT???
If a child or teen hasn’t caught on to reading, is totally uninterested, or shuts down when a parent or a teacher tries to teach reading, we need to ask ourselves: “What are we [...]
By Natalie Hale
In Down Syndrome Reading, Early Reading, Education, Fast Flash, Personal Books, Teaching Down syndrome
Posted How DO you teach reading to a child with Down syndrome? GO IN THROUGH THE HEART
“We go in through the heart and teach to the brain.” “How DO you teach reading to a child with Down syndrome?” asked the Mensan. I was flying across country to give workshops when a [...]
By Natalie Hale
Posted HOW DO YOU ACTUALLY USE “PERSONAL BOOKS?” IT CAN BE CONFUSING…
Mom Needs Help! One mom, awash in homemade personal books and lotto games, wrote me this week saying, basically, “Help!” or, to resurrect a famous comic riff, “Who’s on [...]
By Natalie Hale
In Down Syndrome Reading, Early Reading, Education, Personal Books, Phonics, Sight Word Reading, Uncategorized
Posted Your READING SUCCESS SHORT LIST: a 30-second BLOG
The Short List: 3 Basics If you have only these 3 basics in place, you’re set for success in teaching your child with Down syndrome to read. The entire topic of teaching our kids can be [...]