SUCCESS STEP 8: NOW GET THE CLASSROOM ALIGNED WITH 3 (easy) BASICS
The Reading Railroad is Rolling Again!
My post-NDSC-conference wrap-up is finally over, and the reading train is moving again. So here we are at Success Step 8. This is what you have going so far:
Step 1: You’ve decided “pedal to the metal” is the only way to go. and you’re determined to invest 5 minutes twice a day.
Step 2: In those 5 minutes, you know what to do: personal books, fast flash, and “sandwich style” teaching.
Step 3: You’ve added lotto games into the mix for fast learning and confidence building.
Step 4: You’re teaching letter sounds before letter names.
Step 5: You’re now knowledgeable on why sight words come before phonics in teaching children with Down syndrome, and can defend your position if necessary!
Step 6: You’ve been led step-by-step in creating a personal book, so you’ve got that down.
Step 7: You’ve established the HABIT of 5 minutes 2x a day by making room for this new HABIT in your daily schedule of HABITS. (What, I repeated myself?)
Success Step 8:
Today we’re going to peek into your child’s classroom and get some doable alignment going. Doable. Not stressful. These 3 classroom changes will make your teaching-at-home job even more effective.
Am I suggesting you tell the teacher what to do? No.
Am I suggesting you ask for 3 simple changes that could make all the difference in ease of learning? Yes.
On Being Sherlock
With a bit of subtle sleuthing, you want to make sure 3 basics are in place. If they’re not, I recommend writing them into the IEP. So take a look at the reading materials being used to teach your child at school. Here they are:
- Make type large. If you can instigate only one change, this is it. It can be the singular most effective change in materials that you can ask for. Ask teachers to enlarge the reading materials on a copy machine, etc. If one portrait-oriented page has to be turned into 2 landscape-oriented pages, that works. If the teacher has other ideas for enlarging, great. Hands down, when given a vote on identical reading material that is produced with small type (“small”= anything smaller than 32 point for an emergent reader), vs. large type, the child will choose the larger. Why? So simple. Because it’s easier to read. Since making reading simpler for the brain is high on our value list, this is crucial.
I’ve tested this many times with my students; for confirmation, you might want to offer 2 versions to your child and see what reaction you get! And if you want to go a step further in making the brain’s job easier, double-space between each word. I designed all the reading materials on my site this way. All of them. - High Interest Words + High Frequency Words = Essential Combo. Make sure that high frequency word lists (Dolch) are NOT taught in isolation, but are served up alongside generous amounts of high interest words that relate directly to YOUR CHILD’S LIFE. Not someone else’s child. To anonymously quote an international authority–who shall remain nameless–on teaching children with DS, “To teach high frequency words in isolation is stupid.” Enough said. It’s difficult to engage our children without this element being in place. So if your child’s required word list for the week (or the month) looks like: “is, for, the, in, out,” someone’s in serious trouble.
- No “Rebus” Reading. What’s a rebus? Those tiny pictures/symbols placed either above the printed word or instead of the printed word in a line of text. Why is this not a good idea? Because it slows down our little readers with Down syndrome by requiring the brain to think in two different directions at once: 1. “pretend read” with pictures; and 2. actually read the words in between the symbols by memory or by decoding. This is not easy, folks.
We ask just ONE thing at a time from our children as they struggle to learn. Letting the classroom use rebus reading materials will slow down your child, and can give both child and educator the false impression that the child is learning to read the words. Remove the picture and isolate the word, and you realize that it’s a no go: she has not actually learned the word. For our learners, rebus reading is entertainment, not core learning.
“Elementary, my dear Watson…”
