Hello, I do not know if you had aready had such a posting, so I´ll just ask my question:

How did you introduce new words? By matching cards?
When did you introduce letters? And did you take italics and small letters at the same time?

We advance by learning a new word, once the last one is being " read" or better "recognized" without mistake. It may take between one and 3 days at the moment to learn a new word, but we have only had about 10 words yet, we started right after X-mas.

This seems to be boaring to Cecilie sometimes, as she reads 8-10 words she knows, to come up to the one she is learning. On the other hand I do not dare to introduce two new words at a time, as I am afraid, that she might confound them.

Other question:

mama is the german word for mum.
momo happens to be the name of our cat.

Is it a good idea to make her read momo at the same time as mama - she can pronounce both- to teach her small differences?
(it´s the same with house and mouse, e.g.)


We started learning letters 3 month before starting the early reading, just because we wanted to know what she would keep in mind and which sounds she was able to pronounce. We only stared with italics but it workes quite well, she knows almost half of the alphabet (she loves to memorize them while sitting on the W.C. ...).

Unfortunately early reading is almost unknown with therapeuts in Germany.

Thank you for answering,

Friederike

It is a common known fact that most kids with DS have a better visual memory than typical kids, which is why the tend to be able to sight read sooner than typical kids as well.

Here's what we did...(and it follows the "Love and Learning series techninque, I just happend to think they have a really dumb word list!)

Lets say you're just starting out. Have 10 words on cards, and they should all be lower case letters. (that is "a", not "A") Capitals should be worked on last. EXCEPT for names that are supposed to start with a capital letter.

Ok...10 words. You have posterboard divided into 10 sections. One word written per section, then have her match the word CARD to the word on the board. The first goal is to merely match the words. Basically she's just matching the SHAPE of the letters. You say the word as you hand it to her. If you choose to use sign language, sign it. If you chose to use Cued Speech, cue it.

Once she can successfully match the shape of the words, now you want her to actually read the words. Ask, "Where is 'the'?" So she has to find an already identified word. Once she can do this, change it up a bit. Now she has to tell you the word before she can have it to match it. "What word is this? That's right! That's 'the'! Can you put it where it goes?"

Once she can read all the words, THEN add 5 more words. You will have 10 that she's already successfull with and you want to keep them in the mix. Repeat all these steps until she can do the 'game' with all 15 words. Once she can, add 5 more.

This works REALLY WELL with kids who have Down Syndrome! This same game should be done with letters too. You don't know they've got them down really well until they can do it both ways....find the requested letter, and name the letter you're showing them. I would make she she has the letters down before really focusing on words. If you use cued speech, you can cue the SOUND of the letter as well, and so can she! (this is really helpful if, due to her oral motor development she's not yet able to say all the sounds.)

As far as Mama, vs. Momo, I would not introduce the cats name for quite some time yet.

I forgot to add, are you working with German or English words? In the U.S. the first sight words taught (other than family names) are the first 500 most commonly used words in the language. These are the words the early reading books are written with.

Hello,

thank you for your answer. What you describe in the first part of your answer we have done from summer until now, which is matchin words ( there is a game in germany called "Lotto" and it is juste this system. I made pairs of cards of whatever words she was interested in. In the beginning we layed down two words, then 3, then.... - up to nine. She had the second card in her hand and had to match the cards. She was wonderful doing it. Then at X-mas we made her memorize the first words an today I think we rechead word nr. 10. And at that time I was just wondering, if I should not introduce more than one new word at a time. Certainly we keep the "old" words in the game.


We started with "mama", da ( there, very easy for german children), car, bear, Josi, Ati ( Agnes, never called so) is ( so that she can read "mama ist there"), have, trouseres ( "hose" in german) Olga ( au-pair).

People in Germany who have tried early reading advise to start reading short sentences as soon as possible to make exact syntax come into active speech. They also advise to use adjectives and verbs ( does... wants...) as soon as possible.


Cecilie only learns German words so far.
We live in Germany and my children have to cope with German and French at a time, as my mother´s family ist Belgian. My husband is German as well, but grew up part of the time in Italy, while I spend some time with my family in London, when I was a child.

Friederike

Oh, I forgot.

I have read about early reading books in the English speaking hemisphere several times now. German books keep mentioning, that there are no such books in German, but no one explains, what they are.... Can you explain in a few words, if not don´t bother.

Thank you,

Friederike

The one I think you're talking about is "Teaching Reading to Children with Down Syndrome".

I don't know if they ship outside of the U.S. If they don't I could certainly order it for you and ship it.

Thank you, I know this book, we´ve got it at home in German and in English. From the English edition I know, (or was it an other programm???) that there are books for small children to be read by themseves, if you can say so.
We´ll go to Malta for Easter and I´ll have a look at a book-shop there. Otherwise I´ll finally start to learn power-point to make small pages by myself.

It may sound funny to you, I´m off to bed now, it´s 10.50 p.m. here, so goood night!

Friederike

Oh, I know what you're talking about. Simple books that have simple sentences in them. We have A LOT of those here. I have several sets that we're not even using. They came in boxed sets and have sat on Angela's book shelf for ages. LOL

Yes, that ´s it.

Could you tell me what the sentences are like and who publishes them? I´ll try to get them in Malta or via amazon, it should not be a problem and I´ll adjust them to German.

Funny thing I found out these days:

Cecilie can easily pronounce things like "car" (in German Auto- for thse who remember )or Josie (her sister). When she reads the word, the articulation ist very different and it takes 2 or 3 days to come back to the former clear pronounciation. Why is that so?

Friederike

Try the Downs Syndrome Educational Trust website http://www.downsed.org there are several downloadable documents listed and more that are available throught them.
They are currently trying a new teaching method called see & learn, we have just got the starter pack & Owen seems to respond well to it.

Where can I order this starter pack? I did not find it on the site. A actually come to have a look there regularly. It´s great an a shame that we don´t have such a site in German language.

Friederike

I'm not sure if they have it for order yet, I am one of the group of parents who try out new things for them, this one will be passed for sale so do look out for it.

Leah,

I went to that site and watched the video clips from the First 18 Months video.

I am sitting here crying because one quote just hit me so hard. "Find a place in your house for the disability. And then put the disability in it's place".

God I LOVE that!

where did you find the videos on that side????

Friederike