How many times have you called your child/student with Down Syndrome to come and do some school work and that child balked or refused to co-operate? Sigh. Yes, in our little homeschool and co-op it’s a common occurrence. But necessity is the mother of invention, so I’ve learned many ways to motivate my son and his little friends. I really believe that what most hinders our children with DS from learning is not intellectual delay/disability, but non-compliant behaviors. So to help elicit co-operation, here are my latest tricks for motivating and engaging children with Down Syndrome:
1. Always begin with a preferred activity.
Always. Because getting your child to the school table or place of work is half the battle. You also want your child to associate school work with fun not grind. My son’s preferred activity is reading a book out loud together. He chooses all the books he wants to read out loud and piles them on the table. Then we read a picture book, do a bit of math, read another book, do more math, and so on.
One of the boys in our co-op loves a magnetic vehicle building kit. So for our reading lesson, I usually start with, “What are we building today?” He chooses a picture of a vehicle he wants to build. Then we find the pieces needed to build that vehicle. Next, we do a reading activity, which is usually sounding out several words and reading a decodable reader. Once he’s done that, he gets to build the vehicle and choose the next one to build. In this way we alternate between building and reading. And every time he sees me, he says, “You with me! Work!”
2. Model with Low-Stakes Participation.
This is one of my favorite tricks for harnessing a child’s engagement. It is especially useful when introducing a new concept or activity. I have found that children with DS are often extremely reluctant to try new activities or anything that might overwhelm them or lead to “failure” or mistakes. This is why we should always begin with demonstrating. But to keep our children engaged in the demonstration, it helps to have them participate in a way that they can’t possibly make a mistake. Some examples:
In math:
- Invite the student to point to any number on a number line. Then you name the number.
- Invite the student to pick a card — any card — with a number on it. Then you demonstrate how to build that number on the rekenrek (or abacus.)
- Invite the student to pick any combinations of nickels and pennies. Then you demonstrate how to count them.
- Invite the student to pick any two numbers between 0 and 10. Then you demonstrate how to figure out which one is more.
- Invite the student to roll a large dice two times. Then you demonstrate how to add the two numbers.
- Invite the student to roll a dice. Then you demonstrate how to tally the results.
Rolling a dice is a low-stakes way to participate in a demonstration because there’s no right or wrong answer involved. Notice, though, that my son is reluctant to do the tallying himself, and that’s ok. I just keep on demonstrating until he’s ready. And he always lets me know, because when he’s ready, he usually grabs the marker say says, “Me, me!” or “My turn!”
In phonics:
- Invite the student to pick a letter – any letter. Then you say the letter name and sound.
- Invite the student to pick any combination of two consonants and one vowel. Then you arrange it into a CVC word and demonstrate how to sound it out.
- Invite the student to choose three CVC word picture cards (such at mat, dad, and bag). Then you select the corresponding word cards and demonstrate how to sound out the word and place it under the correct picture.
Participation always fosters and prolongs engagement. But our children need to participate in a way that is non-threatening. This is why low-stakes participation is so effective.
3. Demonstrate until they participate
Recently in co-op, I presented one of our boys with a page that had eight new words on it. He took one look at the page and was about to jump out of his seat. There was no way he was going to decode all those new words!
“Hey!” I said, “This page is for me. I’m doing the work. You don’t have to do anything. You can watch what I’m doing with this page, but it’s MY work.” He settled back down in his seat.
“Here’s what I’m doing,” I continued. “I’m finding all the words with TH and I’m underlining the TH. TH makes /th/.”
I found a word with TH, underlined the TH slowly and carefully sounded it out. Then I made a very slow search for another TH word, found a word, slowly underlined and sounded it out. It only took two demos and then my student quickly found another TH word, which he wanted to underline. I sounded it out for him. After that, he was trying to beat me at finding the TH words and trying to sound them out.
Pointing and circling/underlining are also low-stakes ways of participating for many children. So this lesson was actually a combination of low-stakes participation and super-slow demonstration.
Later in the lesson, we were reading a decodable reader that had /TH/ words. He looked at the first page and pushed it away. Again, I reassured him. “Don’t worry. You can just listen to the story. I’ll read it.” So I began to read it. Really slowly. I demonstrated slowly sounding out each and every word, even the ones he knew. My poor student became impatient with me and rattled off the rest of the story.
Super slow demonstrations give our students the opportunity to process and figure out how to do the activity and then jump in when they feel confident. And my experience is that once they feel confident they can do a task, they want to do it. Sometimes you will need to demonstrate an activity once or twice; sometimes it will take days or weeks. It doesn’t matter how long it takes for a student to feel he/she can do it. What matters is that the student is engaged and learning.
4. Work on the same activity side-by-side.
This is a great technique for activities that are not new but require a lot of practice for mastery. For example, addition and subtraction practice or spelling review. With this method, both the teacher and student have identical worksheets or materials that they work on independently but side-by side. The teacher should take care to work at the student’s pace. So, when the student is working on question #1, the teacher is also working on question #1. This gives the student the opportunity to copy your work if he is unsure about what to do. Is this cheating? No, because we’re not testing. We’re giving the student an opportunity to learn through imitation. Many of the great artists, composers, and writers learned through imitation.
In math, what is important is that the student imitates the process by which you arrived at your answer. Simply copying the answer to an equation will not suffice.
For example: If you are teaching your child to add 5 + 3 with a rekenrek, you each have your own rekenrek. You both slide over 5 beads, then you both slide over 3 beads. Then together, you count: 5…. 6,7,8. You write 5 on your worksheet and your student writes five on his. You are working side-by-side, at the same pace. It’s sort of like synchronized swimming.
When you see your student is gaining confidence, slow down your own pace so the student is working just a bit ahead of you. In the video above, you can see that at the beginning, we are sliding our beads at the same time. But for 7 + 2, I slide my beads after my son does. This is one teeny tiny step towards independence. I can see that he is becoming competent at the process of adding with the rekenrek. However, in the event that he should feel uncertain about himself, he can still check what I am doing without feeling like he needs to do it all on his own. If I see him pause or hesitate, I go ahead and slowly move my beads. I show him what to do instead of tell him what to do. Many kids don’t like being told what to do, but they are ok with imitating.
Sometimes we practice spelling in a similar way. We both segment the same word together and write it on our own paper and then compare to see if we got the same answer.
With side-by-side learning, we accompany our students in their learning. And that is very reassuring for them.
5. Let the Student Dictate
Another effective way of keeping a student engaged is to have them be the teacher for a bit by dictating. Letting a student dictate a word, sentence, or math equation while you write it down is a great way to keep him/her actively involved. For example, when we do math side-by-side, I will sometimes have my son dictate the math equations to me, which I write down, and then we both solve. This turns his attention to the equation and helps him to hold the equation in his short-term memory.
When my son is first learning to spell a word, he segments it and then dictates the letters to me. Then he copies the word.
Handwriting and writing sentences can be cumbersome for our kids. Letting them choose and dictate what to write gives them ownership of the exercise.
6. Use a Visual Check Chart with Rewards
Many children with DS thrive on routines. They like knowing what’s coming next. And they love rewards. So, we implemented a visual check chart for the kids in our co-op that needed them. Here’s a sample of visual check chart for one of our boys’ reading lesson:
Explaining the chart to each student, letting them put in a check after each activity, and giving them their rewards really helps to elicit co-operation. Rewards should not be expensive. In fact, as Dr. Stein has noted, the most important part of any reward is the praise and recognition which accompanies it. Be lavish and enthusiastic in your praise. Here are some rewards which our boys find very motivating:
- Getting to open/close the garage door (quite thrilling for one of our boys who does not have a garage at his house!)
- Getting to play with Doug and Melissa reusable sticker pads for a few minutes
- Getting to choose and play with a Poppin’ Pipe for a few minutes
- Getting to open a Flip-and-Find Word Card
- Getting to open a Mystery Box and play with the toy that’s inside for a few minutes. This is something I learned from my son’s speech therapist, and it works like a charm. The toys inside the mystery boxes are cheap seasonal toys from at Michaels or Five Below: bubbles, putty, light up toys, fidget toys, wind-up toys, etc.
Little by little, try to stretch the amount of time or increase the number of activities between each reward.
Eventually, you can replace rewards with activities built into their routine that they look forward to, such as taking a break, having lunch, and eating a snack. My son’s favorite activity is listening to music or audio stories. He gets that once ALL of his school work is done for the day.
7. Incorporate pretend play and high interest topics
If your child has developed the habit of resistance for a particular activity/subject, try incorporating a little pretend play. One of the boys in our co-op loves animal figures. So we pretend that it is not him but the animals who are learning to read. While he pretends the animals are reading, he is actually doing the work himself. Sometimes my animal and his animal compete to find or sound out a word. Sometimes all the animals gather around to see him write a word. Sometimes, we a play a game where each time he completes an activity, he gets to free an animal from jail.
You can also use high interest topics as a hook to get your child motivated or to keep his/her attention. My son loves Veggie Tales and Tin Tin. So I sometimes use characters from Veggie Tales and Tin Tin to work on grammar, speech, and copy work (handwriting).
8. Get Oxygen to the Brain
Recent studies have shown that individuals with DS have low oxygen. And we know that aerobic exercise improves blood flow (and therefore oxygen) to the brain.
A few weeks ago, one of the boys in our co-op just could not concentrate during his reading lesson. His mom reminded me that her son is able to focus better after a lot of physical activity. So the following week, I had him run laps around a large circle in our court right before his reading lesson. When he came in to work on his letters, he was like a different child. He was more sharp and focused than I had ever seen him.
One of my favorite memories from homeschooling my kids is this: One day my third child was supposed to recite a poem by memory. But, according to him, he couldn’t do it. The poem was too hard. There were too many verses. He couldn’t remember the words. On and on came the excuses. So I sent him outside to run twenty laps around the backyard. When he came in with a big grin on his face, I reminded him that he still had to recite his poem. So he did, right there and then. Perfectly. Oxygen to the brain really does boost the memory.
If you have a child who can’t seem to focus or refuses to engage, try some aerobic exercise. Running, playing tag, doing jumping jacks, dancing to up-beat music; all of these are good for the brain and can boost cognition.
9. Take some Slack: Try another time
What happens if your child/student simply won’t engage and none of the above tricks work? What do you do when the student just starts throwing all the materials onto the floor? Sometimes the best thing to do is just take some slack.
Slack is a necessity in family life and in teaching, especially teaching children with Down Syndrome. One definition of slack is “showing laziness or negligence.”, as in the expression “slacking off”. That’s not what I mean here. By slack, I refer to the definition “not taut or held tightly in position, loose”. It’s having excess time and flexibility to roll when things don’t go as planned. Our children need routine and structure, but within that they also need some slack.
When my son flat-out refuses to do an activity and nothing can convince, him, I say, “Ok. We’ll wait until you’re ready.” Then we both sit in our chairs and wait until he’s ready. Usually it’s only a few minutes, and then he says, “Ready”, or he begins the activity himself. Once in a while, if I see he’s really out of sorts, I let him leave the room. That’s ok, because we have time for slack built into our schedule. I wait 10-15 minutes and then fetch him to try again. Generally he’ll come, with some cajoling on my part. But if he’s absolutely stubborn, I know he’ll eventually come to me for a snack or music. Then I say, “Oh, but you can’t have x until you’re done your work. Are you ready now?” And he almost always is.
Recently, one of the boys in our coop was refusing to work on tracing letters. None of my usual tricks worked… nothing would motivate him. Instead, he began scribbling on the desk and throwing supplies. What to do? “Well, I guess we’re not going to get any work done right now.” I sighed and let him go play.
Some thirty minutes later, he really wanted to play with a specific toy. So I said, “Oh dear. I can’t let you have that because you didn’t do your work.”
“But I will do my work!” he cried.
“Are you sure? Are you ready?” I asked.
“Yes! I will do my work!” and he grabbed my hand and started pulling me toward the table. Then we had a great little lesson and he completed his work.
Excess slack in the schedule allows us to remain calm when faced with behavior problems. It allows us to be flexible, and to give our students a sense of control about their readiness for an activity.
How do we create slack in a busy schedule? Plan to do less. Plan on taking lot more time for lessons than you would expect. Give you and your child large chunks of time for school work. Stick to the essentials and trim out anything non-essential.
10. Turn off the screen.
Finally, please, please, turn off the screen. Engagement is the key and focus is the door that opens the mind to learning. Passive screen time entertainment shuts that door. Whenever you first introduce a new concept or activity, you need to model or demonstrate first. Every single time. BUT it is very difficult for a child who is used to passive screen time entertainment to focus on pen and paper work. It is very hard for a teacher to compete with the animation, music, and special effects of the screen.
A child who is used to daily screen time entertainment will quickly get bored watching you demonstrate a concept or activity. So limit your child’s screen time to special occasions only. This will help your child to focus during lessons. And it will compel your child to learn to entertain him/herself with books, toys, and imagination.
In a nutshell:
My favorite tricks for motivating and engaging children with Down Syndrome are:
- Always begin with a preferred activity
- Model with low-stakes participation
- Demonstrate until they participate
- Work on the same activity side-by-side
- Let the student dictate
- Use a visual check chart with rewards
- Incorporate pretend play and high interest topics
- Get oxygen to the brain
- Take some slack
- Turn off the screen
Happy teaching!
