Tag: reading

A Second Grade Curriculum for Children with Down Syndrome

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Today I’m sharing with you what my son with Down Syndrome did for second grade.

My kindergarten and first grade curriculum posts align with standard grade-level expectations. But second grade is different. As children with Down Syndrome get older, the academic gap between them and their typically developing peers widens.

So, this “Second Grade Curriculum” I’m sharing with you is not based on the chronological age of typically developing children. Rather, it is a combination of the materials that worked best for my son with T21 at 8 years old and what I think could be appropriate for the other 8 and 9 year old children who came to our Down Syndrome Co-op last year.

Of course, each child learns at his/her own pace, and even within Down Syndrome there is great variability. But I hope this list will help you develop a curriculum that will best suit your child and will reduce the amount of adapting you’ll have to do. I hope you’ll find some things here that will help your child/student succeed in “Second Grade.”

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Stop and Go! FREE Sight Word Cards and Readers

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Did you know that many children with Down Syndrome as young as 3 years old can learn to read sight words?

If you’re wondering whether or not your child is ready, here’s a free way to try.

I made this set of car-themed sight word cards and readers for a boy in our co-op who just wouldn’t sit at a desk.

So, we sat on the floor and played cars. And snuck in some sight-word learning. When I showed him the word “Go”, we’d yell “Go!”, and he would zoom a car across the floor. Then I’d show him the word “Stop” when the car stopped. Next I took out a car ramp, and I showed him the word “Car” or “Truck” before he could let a car or truck go down the ramp. Eventually, he had to read “car” or “truck” before zooming down a vehicle.

Some of the best learning happens when we incorporate play.

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Around the Year Picture Books with Beautiful Illustrations

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Reading picture books with beautiful illustrations is a wonderful way to draw our kids into reading and help them appreciate that which is objectively good and beautiful. Illustrations play an important role in the development of our children’s imaginations, so we want to make sure we give our children lots of beautiful books.

Here are twelve of my favorite illustrators (some classic, some contemporary) for around-the-year picture books with beautiful pictures.

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Teaching Children with Down Syndrome to Read: Phonics or Sight Words?

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Parents and teachers of children with Down Syndrome may wonder how to start teaching their students with Down Syndrome. Should they start with sight words or phonics?

Currently, the educational trend is strongly in favor of explicit phonics for children at large. However, many experts, such as Sue Buckley, Natalie Hale, and Terry Brown, and many reading experts in Europe who have extensive experience teaching children with T21 recommend starting with sight words first. This is true even in countries such as Spain, where the rules of phonics and pronunciation of Spanish are much more straight forward than English.

Here are five reasons why you should start with sight words, especially if your child is just starting kindergarten:

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First Steps with Phonics: Decodable Readers

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For those of you using First Steps with Phonics, here are decodable readers that give your students extra practice with reading. Decodable readers use phonetically controlled vocabulary to give students targeted practice with whatever phonogram students are currently learning. They are a great tool for developing fluency in reading. These particular decodable readers are designed for children with Down Syndrome and those with visual impairments.

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How to Teach a Child with Down Syndrome to Sound Out Words

Published on by Mary Cooney2 Comments

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:

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Ten Tricks for Motivating and Engaging Children with Down Syndrome

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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:

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First Steps with Phonics, Book 4: A FREE Phonics Workbook for Children with (or without) Down Syndrome

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Here’s the fourth and final book in the First Steps with Phonics Workbook series, designed especially for children with Down Syndrome.

While most phonics programs begin with CVC words, this introduction to phonics begins with something even easier: the phonograms that make one and only one sound. Book 1 teaches children to sound out and spell words that have the phonograms AY and AI. Book 2 teaches the phonograms EE and IGH. Book 3 focuses on the phonograms OA and OE. And Book 4 teaches the phonogram EIGH.

Here are samples from Book 4:

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Get Down to It! A New Podcast About Down Syndrome

Published on by Mary Cooney4 Comments

I’m so excited to share the news about a newly released podcast: Get Down to It! by Tara Boogaerts. In two episodes I talk to her about the Homeschooling Option for Children with Down Syndrome and Teaching Reading and Learning Phonics.

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