Let’s talk curriculum, shall we? It’s one of my favorite topics! Many children with Down Syndrome need curriculum tailored to their learning profile. So, I’ve spent a lot of time searching, adapting, and creating curriculum for my son who has T21.

Today I’m sharing with you my favorite resources to help children with Down Syndrome master kindergarten-level skills and concepts.

Just so you know, some of the things I look for in curricula for children with Down Syndrome are:

• large sans serif font
• bold, high resolution pictures
• uncluttered worksheets
• high-interest, motivating topics
• lots of repetition and build-in review
• hands-on activities
• and non-digital content

A word on the non-digital content: Ever since COVID, there has been an explosion in digital curricula, and some of it is very good. However, I highly recommend sticking to paper books and hands-on material as much as possible. Here’s why:

1. Studies show that when children read from books their comprehension is better than when they read off a screen.
2. Many children with T21 have difficulty generalizing. The more concrete, real-life items we use to teach, the easier it will be for them to generalize what they are learning to real life.
3. One of the most important skills we need to teach our children is to focus. Screen based curricula often come with so many bells, whistles, and eye candy that children then find books boring. Holding a child’s attention away from screens becomes even more difficult.
4. Dry eye disease in children is on the rise. Prolonged screen time causes atrophy of the meibomian glands, which in turn leads to dry eye syndrome, yes, even in children. It’s important to note that atrophied meibomian glands do not grow back, so we really want to prevent this loss in the first place.

Digital curricula can be so convenient: it’s often low prep with no printing or laminating, and it does not take up the amount of physical space that books do. It can also be very appealing with cute animations and sound effects. However, in the long run, using paper books and worksheets, writing with a variety of utensils (as opposed to always dragging and swiping), and handling concrete objects will be more beneficial for our children.

So here’s my favorite screen-free, Down Syndrome-friendly kindergarten curricula:

Story Time and Shared Reading

Shared reading is an important way to practice so many of our children’s speech therapy goals: it builds vocabulary and grammar and increases reading comprehension. It is an easy way to give your child practice using prepositions, verbs, adjectives, and pronouns. ie. Where is the bear? What is the bear doing? The bear is big and _______. You can have your child sequence the events in a book, count items on a page, make inferences about what will happen next, and look at the expressions on the characters to talk about emotions. You can work on articulation. The most important benefit of shared reading is that you are spending quality time together and bonding over a shared experience.

What to read? Anything your child is interested in!

But here are two ways to start:

A Year of Picture Books with Repetitive Text

A Year of Picture Books with Sequencing

Reading

Start by teaching your child to read sight words. For details on why and how to do this, read Natalie Hale’s Whole Child Reading. It’s a fast, easy read. Or, check out my post on Teaching Preschoolers to Read with See and Learn to see videos.

Here’s what we really liked for learning to read by sight:

See and Learn Phrases 1, 2, and 3 by Down Syndrome Education. These kits come with excellent instructions on how to teach reading sight words. The method is actually very simple but effective.

Here’s a sample of some See and Learn cards:

See and Learn Sentences 1 by Down Syndrome Education. Start this set after your child masters all the See and Learn Phrases kits.

The Faith and Freedom Primers, is such a pedagogical gem that I adapted it for my son. You can download the adapted version for free. Here’s a sample:

There are three primers: A, B, and C. All are available on this blog. These are very effective at teaching sight words because once a word is introduced, it is used repeatedly throughout the rest of the series, providing continual review. These come with picture and word cards you can use for matching and selecting.

I have also created books that provide extra practice reading the words in the See and Learn Kits. You can download them for free.

Free Resources for Teaching Children with Down Syndrome to Read supplement See and Learn Phrases 1 and 2.

Teaching Children with Down Syndrome to Read: More Free Resources supplement See and Learn Phrases 2 and 3.

Ten More Free Books! supplement  See and Learn Sentences 1

The See and Learn kits are very expensive but worth the investment if you can afford them.

A free alternative are the DSF Sight Readers, which are available at the Down Syndrome Foundation of Orange County’s Learning Program Archives. If you use these in lieu of the See and Learn kit, you will need to print out the word cards twice and the picture cards, as well as the corresponding books.

Phonics

Once your child can read 50-100 sight words fluently, progress onto phonics. My son began phonics after mastering See and Learn Phrases 1, 2, and 3. At the kindergarten level, the goal is to master the CVC  (consonant-vowel-consonant) words.

Before starting the CVC words, I recommend beginning with the vowel teams that make one and only one sound. (A very clever idea from Phonics the Right Way)

First Steps with Phonics is a series of four workbooks that I made for my son with DS and his buddies, and their busy moms. It’s very easy to use. All four books are available here on this blog for FREE. They walk you step-by-step thorough the process of teaching your child to sound out words and spell.

Once your child has complete these workbooks, he/she is probably ready to move onto CVC words.

Here are my top three resources for teaching CVC words. I recommend using them in the following order:

Montessori-Inspired Beginning Language Bundle – Pink Set – This bundle has over 250 pages of cards and pictures. It’s pricey, but the very large font on the big picture cards is extremely helpful when first learning to sound out words. We used only the large picture and word cards and the cards where your child matches the word to the picture. Start with all the short /a/ words and teach them by word family (ie. teach all the -at words, then the -an words, then the –ag words, etc). Here’s a sample:

Matching words to pictures (or vice versa) builds comprehension and makes sounding out words more meaningful.

A smaller, but much less expensive option is the Montessori Pink Series Language Cards from The Little Spark Company.  We have used and enjoyed the Blue and Green Series (for consonant blends, long vowels,  and digraphs) from this company.

Short Vowel Stories – available on the blog for free. I wrote these for my daughter many years ago, and then adapted them for my son.

CVC Emergent Readers from the Kindergarten Connection. These printable readers provide extra practice reading CVC words. 

See my post on Our Top Ten Resources for Teaching Phonics for more ideas and videos on how we use them.

Two tips for teaching phonics:

1. When teaching your child to sound out a word, you sound out the first two letters of a CVC word and have your child sound out only the last letter. Sounding out all three letters of a CVC word can be overwhelming at first.
2. Teach only one vowel at a time. Make sure your child masters all the short A word in the Montessori Pink Language Bundle, then read all the short A pages and stories in Short Vowel Stories, and then work on all the short A booklets from the Emergent Readers set. Once short A is mastered, move on to short O. And so on.

Handwriting

Pre-writing Skills

Kumon My First Book of Tracing – my son really enjoys these!

Kumon Let’s Color!

Let’s Learn Colors

Let’s Learn Shapes

Here’s a sampling from Let’s Learn Colors and Let’s Learn Shapes:

I taught all my kids to hand write using the Learning Without Tears program. However, when I started teaching my son with T21 to trace letters, I realized that he needed extra time to process when to stop making a stroke and change directions. Giving him extra large letters to trace gave him this processing time, and he was able to stay within each letter with more success.

So I made all these Let’s Learn Letters worksheets with very large fonts. When your child masters each set of worksheets, print two pages to a sheet to reduce the font size so your child can practice writing smaller letters.

Uppercase – use these resources in the order listed

Let’s Learn Letters, Uppercase 1

Let’s Learn Letters, Uppercase 2

Block Letters, LWT Style – Free!

Lowercase

Let’s Learn Letters, Lowercase 1 – these include verbal prompts, availiable in color or black and white

Let’s Learn Letters, Lowercase 2 – these are in black and white only

Numbers

Let’s Trace Numbers and Block Numbers – Two sets of number worksheets for Free!

Once your child is comfortable tracing and copying letters that are comparable in size to the letters in the Learning Without Tears workbooks, introduce LWT’s My First School Book and My First Lowercase Book.

These workbooks are excellent, but do not provide enough practice. I recommend printing double-lined paper. Hand write words your child is learning to read or let him/her dictate what to write. Then have your child trace or copy your own handwriting. These personalized worksheets are usually more meaningful and motivating than generic handwriting sheets. My son strongly prefers tracing the names of family members and words of high-interest over worksheets that drill letters. We usually do a combination of both.

Download double-lined paper here:

A note on pencils, crayons, and markers: 2HB Graphite Pencils are softer than regular pencils and are therefore easier to write with. We also really like Mr. Pen’s Washable Gel Crayons, which smoothly glide on the paper and produce bright, bold colors with very little effort. These are ideal for children with low tone in the hands and poor visual acuity. What we use the most are Crayola Super Tips Markers. These glide on paper without squeaking and they are washable! For writing on laminated sheets, we like  Crayola Ultra Clean Washable Fine Line Markers.

Math

At the kindergarten level, it is best to teach all concepts with concrete items first (buttons, small toys, unifix cubes, etc.) before moving to pictoral representations.

We spent two years working on Kindergarten level math before my son was ready for First grade math.

For our first year of kindergarten math we used:

Numicon at Home First Steps Kit. This is an excellent hands-on and visual approach to math, recommended by Down Syndrome Education. See my post on Numicon-Based Math Activities for ideas on how to use the kit and for a free set of Numicon-based worksheets. 

Maths For Life. Here is a math program designed for children with T21. There are over 11,000 worksheets you can download. It’s an open-and-go curriculum that’s super easy to use. Maths for Life is also thorough and very well organized. There are topical workbooks that get incrementally harder as well as weekly general workbooks that allow for continual review. Before we began each new workbook, I had my son practice the concepts with concrete objects. The Foundations level covers most if not all kindergarten math topics.

For a free sampling of the workbooks, download the free baseline assessment. This is 50 pages of worksheets that will give you a sense of what is being covered at the Foundations level. It will also help you assess which topics your child already knows and which topics to focus on. You can also download a shorter free sample here.

For our second year of kindergarten math, we switched to using a rekenrek as our main math manipulative. This simple, inexpensive “counting rack” really made a difference in helping my son develop number sense.

Many children with DS take a long time to develop number sense. I found that daily work with the rekenrek gave my son a very concrete understanding of numbers. See my post on Ten Essential Math Skills for hands-on activities with a rekenrek that prepare children with Down Syndrome for addition and subtraction.

We also used Math with Confidence K. This is a thorough and systematic program that includes a lot of hands-on activities. More importantly, this program uses single-row ten frames which reinforce visual quantities in relation to five and ten the way a rekenrek does.

Science

At the kindergarten level, science should definitely be hands-on. The goal is to share a sense of wonder at God’s beautiful and marvelous creation. Here are my suggestions:

• Go on nature walks and name the different plants and animals you see. Teach your child how to quietly observe animals and their behaviors. 
• Grow plants from fast-growing seeds. Learn the parts of plants, flowers, and trees.
• Use a butterfly kit to watch caterpillars turn into butterflies.
• Track the weather on a calendar with weather stickers
• Sort animal figures or pictures of animas into classifications.
• Visit farms, zoos, aquariums, etc.

If you have a child that loves science books, I recommend the Early Bird Series by Evan-Moor. My son really enjoyed these books.

Art and Poetry

All of my children have memorized and recited poetry as part of their homeschool education. This is a skill that I believe is even more so important for a child with Down Syndrome. It’s an excellent way to build memory skills, to practice articulation and expressive speech, and it fill a child’s mind with beautiful language and imagery. The Wise Nest has a wonderful collection of poems that come with visual aids to help with memorizing each line. My son has memorized several poems this way. Here’s a sample:

For art, expose your child to beautiful art masterpieces. Look at the pictures in detail and ask lots of /wh/ questions, such as, Where is this? Who or what is in this picture? When is this – day or night? How does the person feel? Why? What shapes do you see? What colors? and so on.

• Lucy Mickelthwait’s Child’s Book of Play in Art
• Lucy Mickelthwait’s Child’s Book of Art
• Art Masterpieces: ABC Collection from Catholic Heritage Curricula

Once your child is able to draw basic shapes, show how you can combine them to draw simple pictures, such as a house, the sun, a snowman, etc. Many children with T21 have difficulty sequencing, so teaching them how to draw a picture through a sequence of steps will help develop the skill of sequencing.

Music

• Listen to Music Together on Spotify and sing along
• Get a small drum and have your child imitate simple rhythms. Play loud and soft, fast and slow. 
• Teach your child to play simple tunes such as Twinkle Twinkle and Hot Cross Buns on the xylophone. Talk about high and low sounds. 
• Play classical music in the back ground while your child is playing.

Religion

My son really enjoyed this First Bible Story Book. The text is simple and each page is full of illustrations.

Phys. Ed

Consider some of the following:

• Special Olympics
• Homeschool gym/gymnastics classes
• Swim lessons, biking, soccer, etc.

A Final note:

This may seem like an ambitious curriculum, but this does not need to be completed in one year. Each child learns at his/her own pace; children with T21 especially cannot be rushed into understanding concepts and mastering skills. Many children with Down Syndrome work at kindergarten level skills for 2-3 years.

More important than learning to read or write is developing the habits of attending to a task, persevering, and co-operating. I often advise new homeschoolers to focus on these habits more than on academics during the first year of homeschooling.  With persistence and consistency on your part, you can incrementally build your child’s ability to focus and persevere. Once these habits are in place, homeschooling becomes much more doable and enjoyable for everyone involved. 

Many children with T21 exhibit challenging behaviors that make teaching them difficult. These behaviors are due, in part, to their emotional immaturity.  So establish a routine (so your child knows what to expect), give your child lots of breaks,  and find ways to make school fun.

Here are two posts how to motivate young children with Down Syndrome:

How to Motivate Young Children with Down Syndrome

Ten Tricks for Motivating and Engaging Children with Down Syndrome

And finally, see my post on Effective Strategies for Teaching for research-based methods that work best for children with T21.

You may also be interested in: A First Grade Curriculum for Children with Down Syndrome

Happy teaching!

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