For all of you trying or wanting to teach your child with Down Syndrome to read, I have:

exciting news!

Scroll to the bottom of this post for that.

But first, this post….

Recently, one of the boys in our co-op was really struggling with reading. He was having a hard time matching and memorizing sight words. Furthermore, practicing letters and their sounds did not interest him at all. In fact, during our reading lessons, he was becoming increasingly inattentive. So I wondered, “What if he just can’t see the letters? And what if he knows his letters but is bored with them?” After all, he had been learning the letters and their sounds since kindergarten, and he was now in second grade.

So I made extra-large word and picture cards to go with First Steps with Phonics, Book 1. We began decoding words that only have TWO sounds as opposed to CVC words (ie. cat and dog) which require blending three sounds. And, by golly, he’s learning to decode!

Here’s what we did:

First, I laid out three pictures on the table and told him their names:

Teaching Bosco the names of the pictures helps build vocabulary and increases his chance of success. When he starts to decode, Bosco knows that the word he is decoding will be one of those pictures and not just any random word. I try to stack the deck in his favor to set him up for success. This is an important way of keeping our students with Down Syndrome engaged.

Then I taught him the AY phonogram. This is a great phonogram to start with because AY always says /ay/ and many AY words, such as hay and ray only consist of two sounds.

Next, I demonstrated how to sound out the word “say”. It’s a good idea to begin teaching students to blend with consonants that can be sustained (such as s, m, n, r, f, h, and so on.)

You probably noticed that I kept reminding him the sound of “s” and “ay”. I subscribe to the philosophy of “teach, don’t test”. So if I ask a student a question and he don’t seem to know the answer, I simply tell it to him. There’s a fine balance: on one hand you want to wait long enough for him to process the question and recall the answer if he knows it; on the other hand, you don’t want him to lose confidence.

After “we” decoded the words and matched them with their pictures, Bosco read each word:

I sent Bosco home with all the AY words, so he could practice with his parents.

The following week, he could read them all, so we moved onto AI words, such as rain and tail. These have three sounds to blend. He did just fine. Turns out, he did know some of his letter sounds! As the saying goes, use it or lose it.

Here’s Bosco three weeks after our initial lesson on blending:

One piece of the puzzle you don’t see is the daily practice he did at home with his parents. But that daily practice is what is helping him to make progress.

If you have a student who is having a hard time blending sounds to decode, consider the following:

Can your student see the letters clearly? Children with DS have poor visual acuity, yes, even if they wear glasses. This means everything they see is in soft focus; nothing looks sharp. Once I started giving Bosco materials he could see well, he started to engage.

Have you demonstrated enough? While I was teaching my son to read sight words, I demonstrated how to sound out those words months before starting phonics. So, demonstrate, demonstrate, demonstrate. If all you do for several lessons, weeks, or months is demonstrate how to sound out words and let your student simply put word cards under their corresponding pictures, your student is still learning, as long as he/she is paying attention.

Are you reviewing letter sounds? Recognizing letters and producing their sounds are two different skills. Blending sounds is yet another skill. So, when your student is working on blending but struggling to remember letter sounds, review the sound of each letter/phonogram before asking him/her to blend the sounds. This can prevent frustration and sets students up for success.

For example:

Finally, two more tips:

Sometimes children get confused with the different vowel teams and their sounds. You can remind them that all the blue letters make a team and say ONE sound. The leader of the team is always the first letter of the team. Together the team says the name of that letter. So, for the vowel team IGH, the team leader is I and together they all say I. With this in mind, sorting out words by sound or team (as we did in the above video) is also helpful. (Note: This “Leader of the Team Rule” is not true for ALL vowel teams, but for many vowel teams including the ones taught in First Steps with Phonics.)

Some children seem to understand the process of blending by building words first. So use phonogram tiles to build words. The first step is to have students build words that only have two sounds, and to have them choose only the first letter. This activity will also reinforce your student’s knowledge of letter sounds.

Once your student can build the AY words, move on to the AI words, which have three sounds:

For more word building activities, see First Steps with Phonics.

Whatever you do, make sounding out words and building words a collaborative effort until your student can blend with ease. Building your child’s confidence is so important for keeping him/her engaged, so give lots of praise for every little success.

For a set of free AY blending cards click here. These are a great supplement to First Steps with Phonics book 1.

A complete set of Blending Cards that supplements First Steps with Phonics books 1-4 is available at TpT. These contain word and picture cards for the following vowel teams: AY, AI, EE. IGH, OA, OE , and EIGH.

And now for the news:

From March 17-19, 2025, Down Syndrome Education will be hosting their annual International Down Syndrome Research Forum. It’s a wonderful event, and it’s always to encouraging to see all the research and work that is being done around the world to improve the education and life of individuals with Down Syndrome. There will be presentations on topics such as speech, motivation and behavior, sleep, social skills, etc.

On the last day of the forum, there will be an Educator’s Symposium focused on math and reading. I will be part of a group of four parents who will talk about their children’s reading progress. Specifically, I’ll be presenting the methods and materials I used to teach my son and the boys in our Down Syndrome coop to read. Visit Down Syndrome Research Forum to register for this on-line event.

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