Down Syndrome Education at Home – Page 2

Short Vowel Stories Adapted for Children with Down Syndrome

Published on July 5, 2022 by Mary CooneyLeave a comment

As promised in my last post about our top ten resources for teaching beginning phonics, here is a collection of Short Vowel Stories adapted for children with T21. I wrote these for my oldest child when she was learning to read. Since I’m all about adapting materials for children with T21, of course I had to adapt these stories for Junior. I spent a fair amount of time adapting the stories for him, increasing the font size, putting double spaces between each word, and adding a lot more visuals to help with reading comprehension. So, when he buzzed through these stories, I have to admit I was pleased, but I also had that unsettling feeling you get when you spend two hours cooking up a wonderful meal and then your teenage sons devour it in five minutes.

Anyways, I think this collection of very short stories will help your children (with or without Down Syndrome) enjoy success as they first read phonetically. And yes, for you they’re free.

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Three-Syllable Word Cards for Articulation… and Teaching Ornery Kids

Published on May 28, 2022 by Mary CooneyLeave a comment

Does your child need practice articulating three-syllable words? For many children with T21, difficulty with phonemic and short term memory is one of the causes of language delay. This really becomes evident when they try to remember how to say multi-syllabic words or construct sentences.

As a former piano teacher, I am noticing the similarity between teaching the language of music to typically developing children and teaching language to a child with Down Syndrome. For typically developing children (and adults!) learning to improvise on the piano can only occur after *a lot* of practice with scales and chord progressions. Similarly, it seems that for Junior, learning to “improvise” in speech only occurs after lots of practice with carrier phrases and repetition with words that are hard to articulate. Frankly, I’m hoping that at some point something will just “click” and he’ll start talking in complete sentences. But I’m still waiting for that to happen.

In the meanwhile, we’re working on articulating difficult sounds such as /h/ and /y/, and we’re working on three syllable words. We practice these at the word level and at the sentence level. And we practice them in scripted conversations. Moreover, because the written word has become a very powerful visual prompt, Junior is also learning to read these words by sight and partly by sounding out.

Of course we want to practice words that he will actually use in daily life. So, for this summer I made this set of flashcards for articulation practice and sight reading.

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Let’s Learn Letters 2! – More Handwriting Worksheets for Preschoolers with (or without) Down Syndrome

Published on May 14, 2022June 14, 2022 by Mary CooneyLeave a comment

As I mentioned in my last post on Handwriting Skills for Preschoolers, here is another set of handwriting sheets. These are meant to be used once your child is proficient with the first set of Let’s Learn Letters and is ready for narrower (but not too narrow!) lines to trace.

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Handwriting Skills for Preschoolers with (or without) Down Syndrome

Published on April 23, 2022 by Mary CooneyLeave a comment

This past fall, Junior and I really began working on early handwriting skills in a consistent and systematic manner. It’s been fun to watch his progress. Not only are his hands getting stronger, he is also developing better dexterity. Little by little. So today I’m sharing with you some of our favorite resources and methods for building handwriting skills.

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Building Phonemic Awareness: Three Free Books about Rhyming

Published on April 9, 2022April 14, 2022 by Mary CooneyLeave a comment

Teaching children about rhyming is one of the first steps in building phonemic awareness and preparing them to read phonetically. It’s one of the reasons why so many books for preschoolers use rhymes.

To help Junior learn about rhyming, I made three silly books about rhyming. They’re silly because Junior gets a kick out of anything silly. When I read the first book to him, he giggled so much I just had to make more.

Of course, I thought your preschoolers might enjoy them, too. So here they are:

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Teaching Children with Down Syndrome to Read with See and Learn: Ten More Free Books!

Published on March 26, 2022April 14, 2022 by Mary CooneyLeave a comment

For those of you using DSE’s See and Learn Reading Program, here are ten more free books. These books are meant to go with See and Learn Sentences 1. Each book reinforces new words and reviews old ones. New books keep my little guy highly motivated, which I why I keep making them 🙂

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Adapted Books for Children with Down Syndrome

Published on March 1, 2022April 14, 2022 by Mary CooneyLeave a comment

In past posts, I have shared some of our homemade books to supplement DSE’s See and Learn Reading Program. Sometimes, however, kids like to read from “real” books. Adapting real books is a great way to motivate them to read. Natalie Hale, author of Whole Child Reading gives some excellent guidelines for adapting books. My nephew Aidan, for example, LOVES the movie Cars. So my sister and I adapted several Cars books for him, which he was so excited to read.

Today I’m sharing some adapted books which your kids may find highly motivating:

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Let’s Learn Shapes! More Montessori-Inspired Worksheets for Preschoolers with (and without) Down Syndrome

Published on February 8, 2022April 14, 2022 by Mary CooneyLeave a comment

As I wrote in my last post, attributes such as colors and shapes, are abstract concepts that can be difficult for children with T21 to understand. But the Montessori method of matching, selecting, and naming really helps children understand attributes and generalize them to real-life objects.

Here are some worksheets I made for Junior to help him learn and understand shapes:

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Let’s Learn Colors! Montessori-inspired worksheets for Preschoolers with (or without) Down Syndrome

Published on January 17, 2022June 14, 2022 by Mary CooneyLeave a comment

Teaching preschoolers with T21 about colors can be challenging. Many of these kids have difficulty generalizing. It’s one thing for them to understand that a banana is a banana. But abstract concepts such as colors are harder to grasp. A banana is yellow and a lemon is yellow? It takes time for kids to understand that a color is an attribute and not an object of itself.

However, the Montessori method of matching, selecting, and naming is really effective at helping children to generalize. Developing the skills of matching, selecting, naming, and reading has really opened the door of learning for Junior. So nerdy mom here has made these worksheets to help Junior learn his colors, generalize them to real objects, and read the written words :

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Nativity and Christmas Picture and Word Cards

Published on December 8, 2021April 14, 2022 by Mary Cooney2 Comments

Just over a year ago, Junior began learning to read sight words using DSE’s See and Learn Reading program. We have been amazed at how quickly he learned to read, and since then he has completed all three of the See and Learn Phrases kits and the See and Learn Sentences kit (which is huge!). Now there are no more See and Learn Kits for him to use, but I don’t want to slow down his momentum. We have since moved onto phonics. However, the process of matching, selecting, and reading sight words is such a powerful learning tool for him that I want to keep using it in addition to learning phonics.

So I am making my own picture and word cards, See and Learn style. It’s a lot of work, but definitely worth the effort, especially when I see how quickly and eagerly Junior learns new words. Here are two sets I am sharing with you today: A Nativity Set and a Christmas Vocabulary Set.

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