Signs and Wonders

Focus on Reading

Our family loves to read we often have a number of read alouds going at once and those children who are able are avid readers. However independent reading doesn't come easily to my children with two children with intellectual delays and a strong family history of dyslexia, along with auditory and visual processing disorders, getting a child to that independent reading stage can be long an arduous. Of our eight children school age and over six have vary degrees of dyslexia or other difficulties that make learning to read a challenge. last year we began to use this pilot program for children with down syndrome with Amiee and Nick the children's progress was encouraging though labour intensive for me as I had to make the materials myself. The orange county program used a whole word approach with the child learning four words at a time through a system of flash cards. The program builds upon it's self as the child masters groups of words first singularly and then in small sentences breaking the reading process down into small doable units. I then came across Special Reads for Special Needs which used a similar whole word/flash card approach the difference however was that each set of flash cards have a corresponding book and all the materials were provided. Ideally we do the flash cards three times a day though in reality we often forget to do this in the evenings as it's such a busy time of day for us. I really like the special reads material their very simple a little quirky and the children like them. These books along with the orange county materials are providing a great foundation for Amiee and Nick, I can see progress and whats more important they can see progress, and thats so good for their self esteem. Nick is keeping track of just how many words he can read and his list is slowly building, what a grace, It has been suggested that we stick to teaching this child life skills and that he probably will never learn read, but he loves books, he has a thirst for knowledge and I just can't give up, that doesn't seem fair to him some how. We will continue to chip away adding one new word at a time regardless of how long it takes and who knows just maybe, one day I'll get to utter those special words of mummy frustration, "Nick will you get your head out of that book and do....."

A few weeks ago I stumbled onto another great reading site TampaReads  and began to use the materials with my more typically developing children. TempaReads through it's Reading Key program provides the first nine lessons free and while we are still using the free materials I am very very impressed with what I have seen so far. Whats more important though is that the children enjoy the lessons as well. We have set up a reading wall in our school area as described in the program and the children learn to sound out, read and then recognize each word listed in the lesson. We time each child's reading with a stop watch and when they are able to read the list in 15 to 20 seconds they have mastered that lesson and move onto the next. It's a lot of fun, very do able and everyone wants to join in, what more can a busy home educating mum ask for. The reading Key aims at increasing both the fluency and vocabulary of the reader, it gives lots of great ideas for teaching those hard to learn concepts/phonic sounds and is presented in a way that encourages children to learn. If you have children struggling with reading I highly recommend this program.

The Pope and the Children

Have a look at this beautiful video of Pope Benedict blessing a group of children with special needs during a youth rally at St Joesph seminary Yonkers NY. What a wonderful blessing for these young people and their families.