Math: Not Our Favorite, But We're Gonna Rock It! (Videos)

I remember when I was teaching....my students with Down Syndrome almost always struggled more in math than in reading. I always hate to make generalizations like that, but from my experience it almost always held true! Interestingly enough, when I looked into this further, there is research that shows people with Down Syndrome achieve a higher level in reading than in math, so there are some facts supporting my observation. Not surprisingly, I'm finding with Zoya (and her teacher is as well) that math is just not her favorite :) She will choose any other activities over math activities in the classroom and at home! I try to incorporate math activities into other activities and do short spurts of math work as not to frustrate her (or me haha) too much! I also try to do a lot of games that incorporate math skills! Both my students with special needs and students without special needs LOVED learning math through games!

I have recently pulled out my "Teaching Math to People with Down Syndrome..." book after it took a little vacation in a box in the basement! I used this book a lot when I was teaching, and it's been helpful once again as I figure out how to best help Zoya in the area of math! I really did forget how much I love this book! It has a lot of great ideas to make math more concrete rather than abstract for our kids! (On a side note, there is also a "Teaching Reading to Children with Down Syndrome" book in this same series that is also very helpful!)

I've been researching some math programs that might be best for Zoya and have narrowed it down to a couple. One of those is Numicon and the other is Math-U-See. I'm going to continue looking into both...but if you have experience with either of these programs with a child with Down Syndrome, I'd love to hear about your experience!

Some of the beginning concepts we've been working on include rote counting to 20, arranging numbers 1-10 in order, 1-1 correspondance, more and less, counting items up to 10 items, telling how many are in a set after counting them, understanding zero, and completing patterns.  The very most basic concepts that we started with that Zoya has now mastered are matching and sorting by color, size, and other attributes, showing one more, simple comparisons (more or less, big or little, same or different), and identifying written numbers 1-20. So that is the foundation on which we are building.

I took a few videos today while I was working with Zoya. You can see that I pretty much adapt as I go and see needs or see that she isn't understanding.

Here is Zoya working on ordering numbers 1-10. I got this cool wooden number block set on Zulily before Christmas! I LOVE it and we use it for lots of different math activities!

Here we are working on "what comes next." If you noticed in the first video, Zoya keeps going back to number 1 to start counting all over again. I don't discourage it because it helps her practice counting, but she has difficulty counting on. So practicing "what comes next" will help her to count up from a certain number. 

This was the first time I attempted to use this tool for 1-1 correspondence. As you can see, she struggled to grasp the concept....so after this I gave her a little break and came up with a tool that would help her understand this concept a bit better. You'll see that in the video after this one! 

In this video, you can see the tool I came up with to help her! I just drew a grid on some paper and cut it out so it showed one square per number (1 square after the #1 block, 2 squares after the #2 block). I like this because you can see how she looks at the squares for the first few and is able to grab that many counters to match. Without this tool she had no idea how many to grab for the number and kept getting distracted by having to grab one at a time and count. I also like the grid because I could easily turn it the other way and have the numbers along the side instead of the top. In hindsight I'd have used a different color paper since it blends in with the table (or put a different colored mat down under it). Also, I only made it go up to 7 because that's as big as my piece of paper was, and also...I won't move on to more until she masters these smaller numbers first. Once she does I'll just add on to this grid by tapping another sheet of paper to it! There are so many ways to practice this same concept, but I think this is going to be one of our favorites! 

And one last video. I dug this puzzle out of the basement and Zoya enjoys it. It's great for counting and ordering numbers. You could also do the above activity with this puzzle, putting the correct number of items under each train car number. I like it because it allows her to move around a bit more. Hands-on is the key for Zoya learning math, so with everything I do with her for math skills! 

Please let me know if these videos are helpful! I'm trying something new after a few blog readers requested some more videos of how I teach the girls. I'm passionate about teaching, since it was my first profession, and a bit of a nerd in that area, so I'm happy to share ideas. Just remember every child is different...what works for one of my children doesn't necessarily work for the others, so I'm constantly trying to adapt to their needs and figure out the best ways to help them understand the concepts! 

Sensory Learning

Sensory play is so important for all kids, but especially important for kids who lacked those experiences early on in life (orphans) and for children with Down Syndrome (as many children with DS have some sensory needs). Zoya and Mila are polar opposites in so many ways. One of those ways is how different they are with their sensory profiles. When Zoya came home she was very sensory defensive in most areas. She freaked out with loud and sudden noises. She got easily overwhelmed in large crowds. We had to leave worship at church because the music was too loud. She couldn't stand to be spun around or even tipped back ever so slightly. She hated swinging in the baby swing. She was scared of a lot. A lot of things helped her become less sensory defensive, including Therapeutic Listening, and a healthy sensory "diet" of sorts. Mila on the other hand is such a huge sensory seeker and dare devil when it comes to sound and movement! She however, has a harder time using her hands to explore her environment so these activities will be great for Mila when she is a little older too!

 One common sensory activity is shaving cream play. We took it up a notch and had an hour of "sensory learning" experience. 

First we practiced some letters in the shaving cream. We focused a lot on "Z" and "o" getting her ready to write her name. 

Zoya wrote these letters by herself and told me what they were. Now, if I said "write a letter 'p' she probably couldn't do it, but she likes to doodle and then tell me what letters or numbers her doodles look like. It's a good start!

She is starting her big "Z"

First line across...

Slant to the left...

Pull back across!

"I did it!"

Just playing :)

I'm getting better at tolerating messes...clearly I have my own sensory issues!

Another activity we did was drawing horizontal lines to practice our pre-writing skills. She had to connect the correct colored bears. 

We sorted our bears by color

To "up" the sensory experience we added rice...here was Zoya's initial thought. She got over it easily and thought it was cool!

I told her "hands up and don't move" while I pushed her over to the sink to clean up!

We finished our sensory play by playing in soapy water for another 20 minutes!

"Yes, mom?"

Here is an example of how we carried over the sensory learning to "paper/pencil" skills. I'll post more on this another time! This is her letter Z done all by herself on a small sentence strip. We used the stickers as guides for her to know where to draw her lines to make the Z! 

Learning the Alphabet Part 2

**Make sure you read the post prior to this one, or this one won't make much sense! 

At this point Zoya can recognize all the letters of the alphabet and choose them from a lineup of 3 letters. She can verbally name about 2/3 of them and our goal is to be able to verbally identify all of them. Obviously there were a million little steps in getting her to learn the letters though. It is a lot of work for both myself and Zoya but she is determined and was actually ready for her letters. I think that is an important first step. I had tried working on letters with Zoya one time previously and she just wasn't into it so we took a break and tried again in a couple of months. Once she started learning her letters she started noticing letters and words around her. She would point to letters on shirts or signs and try to say "letters." Then she started being able to isolate some of those letters in places. Now she points out letters everywhere we go and yells their names....from items we are buying, to shopping carts, to people's clothes with letters, to books, to necklaces with words. I just love it! Anyways, my advice is, don't start working on letters until you think your child is ready or else you'll both just be frustrated!

My next piece of advice is break it down! And when you think you've broken things down enough, break it down again! If your end goal is for your child to read the letters of the alphabet you have to set short term benchmarks (here is the special ed. teacher in me talking!) I realize this might not interest everyone, but I've had a lot of people ask how exactly I went about teaching Zoya the letters. And it might seem pretty technical, but setting short term benchmark goals is just the dorky special ed. teacher in me....and it has worked!  You can use this idea of having one overarching goal with several short term benchmark goals for any big goal you may have for your child. A lot of you probably already do this but maybe you've just never stopped to think about it.

Here are some short term benchmark goals I set for Zoya (with the overall goal being that she will speak each letter name when shown that letter in isolation) and how we transitioned from one short term goal to the next. You'll see that each short term goal builds on the short term goal before it and it's like climbing a ladder with your big goal at top! (When I talk about the cards-picture side up or black-letter side up, I'm talking about the double-sided flashcards I bought from Preschool Prep. One side has the letter character/picture and the other just has a black letter).

1. When shown one letter card, picture-side up (A-H upper and lowercase), Zoya will repeat the letter name (after hearing me say it) and/or give the sign/gesture that we came up with for that letter.
This is just a fun way to start getting to know the letters. While we did this I sang songs, or said the letters in funny voices...whatever I needed to do to keep Zoya interested!

2. Given three letters, picture-side up (meaning the character from the movie in the shape of the letter is what Zoya is to identify, not the actual black letter just yet), Zoya will point to the correct letter (letters A-H, both upper and lowercase).
Looking back I would have done letters A-D to start and broken it down even smaller). This goal was broken down into two smaller goals as I went along. When we first did these flashcards, picture-side up, I would give either an auditory or verbal clue to help jog her memory. Remember we had been watching the letter video (A-H) once a day and still were at this point. So for example, I'd say "Zoya can you find DANCING D?" Or, "Can you find G FOR GLASSES?" and then I'd sign glasses. This helped a lot in the beginning. When she had a couple weeks of practice doing it this way and started to get really good, then I'd just say, "Zoya find D" and then I'd wait. If she had trouble, then I'd give her the clue. Eventually she got to the point where she could point to the correct letter only hearing the letter name.
To transition to the next short term goal, when Zoya got really good at identifying the picture letters, I'd flip the card over and show her the black-letter side and have her repeat the letter again or just tell her the letter if she couldn't say it.

3. Given three letters, black-letter side up, Zoya will point to the correct letter (letters A-H, both upper and lowercase).
Again, this goal was broken down even smaller too. I started by placing two of the incorrect choices picture side up and putting the correct letter choice black-letter side up. Even if she caught onto the fact that I always asked her to pick the "black letter" it still helped her start to cement the letters. When she did well here, then I turned all three choices to the black-letter side. To begin, again, I would give her the letter name along with the clue to help jog her memory. Eventually we were able to move to just hearing the letter name and having her pick the correct choice. Some letters she learned before others, so when I knew she had learned a letter I'd just drop the clue. If I wasn't sure I'd give her the letter name without the clue, then wait, and if she wasn't sure I'd give her the clue/gesture/sign. To transition to the next goal, I'd say "Find D." Then when she found it, I'd ask, "What letter is that?" And since she had just heard it she was able to repeat it.

4. Zoya will verbally name each letter (letters A-H, both upper and lowercase).
This brings us back to the overall goal, and what you saw Zoya doing in the video. She still needs a lot of repetition and practice to cement all the letters into her brain :) Unlike kids without special learning needs, Zoya needs continual practice with skills she has already mastered so she does not lose the ground she has gained.

And when I got through all of these steps for letters A-H, I moved onto the next set. We are working on the third and last set of letters, which has proven to be the hardest for Zoya. Seriously...W and V and U and Y and Z...they're all too close! Those ones (except Z) confuse her! As you can see it's quite a process!!!!

In my next post, "Learning the Letters Part 3," I will write about some other supplemental tools we used during our letter-learning journey!

Learning the Alphabet Part 1

The other day, I posted THIS VIDEO of Zoya reading some of the letters of the alphabet. Back in June, when I was done teaching for the summer, one of my summer goals for Zoya was for her to learn all the letters of the alphabet (just the letter names, not the sounds yet). We had already worked on COLORS,  NUMBERS, and shapes (which I never blogged about). For all of these skills, I used the Preschool Prep Company materials. These materials are FABULOUS! Part of Zoya's Down Syndrome means she requires a lot of repetition and practice to master skills, as I've said before, and this program does just that! I cannot say enough good things about this program. And NO they're not paying me to promote them, although maybe they should??? LOL....I'm a pretty good advocate for these materials after seeing how amazing Zoya has done learning colors, numbers, shapes, and now letters.

That is not to say you can just buy the videos and pop them into the DVD player and walk away (although that probably might work with kids without special learning needs!) Just as with most materials, we need to adapt them to fit our kids best.  So for the alphabet, I bought the DVD, the letter flashcards (they don't make number or color or shape flashcards, but if they did I would have bought them instead of making my own), and the board book with flaps. The DVD is nicely divided into three sections so that you can view the letters 8-9 at a time. This is really important because it would be unreasonable to expect Zoya to sit and watch the entire video of 54 letters (there are 54 because there are upper and lowercase and a fancy g and a fancy a) or to learn all 54 in one chunk.  Zoya had been successful with colors and numbers and shapes because she was only expected to learn 8-11 colors/shapes/numbers (since numbers go 0-10). So I decided to divide the alphabet into the chunks that Preschool Prep recommended. That would mean Zoya would be learning 16-20 letters at a time. It did work for her, but in hindsight I probably would have broken it down even further and done 4 letters at a time (since they present upper and lowercase at one time that would mean 8 actual letters).

So we started watching the video once a day, just watching the first 8, or 9? (can't remember exactly) letters. I sat with her and reinforced the letters by saying them, or commenting about the letter character (A is an astronaut, B is a butterfly and bee, C is a cloud, etc). This association learning is an awesome concept and works wonderfully with Zoya. She remembers each character, just as she did with the colors, which in turn, helps her to remember the letter. Also, while we watched the DVD together, I gave many of the letters gestures (since the ASL signs for letters are too difficult for Zoya with her delayed fine motor skills). So in that video you could see Zoya doing gestures, which helped her to remember some of the letters. For letter "C" it looked like she was clapping, but she was actually signing "cloud." For D, she signs "dance" because the character on the DVD dances. For letter E, she points to her hear for "earring" because the character on the DVD wears earring. For G, it looks like she's hitting herself in the head like she finally remembered, but she is actually touching her eyes for "glasses," which, once again is how the DVD teaches the letter "G"...using characters with glasses and goggles. For H, she squeezes her face, which is her made up sign for "house"...I still don't know why she signs house this way LOL. For I, you can see her point to her eyeball....J, she signs "jump", etc. Using a combination of association learning, gestures, and the great visuals of the letter characters, Zoya was able to learn her letters!

More to come in Part 2......I will discuss some more activities that we did and how we used the letter flashcards!

Down Syndrome Awareness Month

October is Down Syndrome Awareness Month! With us leaving in 13 days for Eastern Europe for our second adoption of another sweet angel girl with Down Syndrome, I certainly will not be participating in the "31 for 21" blogging challenge. There's just no way I will be able to post on here every day for the next month! BUT, I will try my hardest to get some good posts in before we leave about what Down Syndrome has meant to us, and hopefully some of the ways Zoya is a star!

For this first post, I'll leave you with a video of our bright star showing off her hard work naming some letters of the alphabet. I'll do a follow up post about what activities we've done to learn the letters of the alphabet!

Zoya Spells Her Name

I've been working a lot with Zoya on letters and her name lately. You can see a little of her hard work here. You'll have to turn your volume up so you can hear her little voice. She recognizes about half of the letters of the alphabet so far, upper and lowercase! I am also working on teaching her how to put the letters of her name in the right order. This is why I love short names for kids :)

Numbers and iPad

I took this video a while back but never got around to posting it. I was trying to video Zoya doing her color app on the iPad and I got a little bit of that. You can also see how fast she picked up on how to navigate this thing...it amazes me and now I have to keep her from exiting the games before they're done because she likes to just go back to the main screen and choose a new app.  Stinker! One of her favorite apps is the itsy bitsy spider one so you can see her asking to play that one.  In the video you can see her touch the botton left of the screen (it has a little white pointer finger) and I never even knew you could exit the program this way....Zoya taught me that LOL!

Colors Part 3

I posted about Zoya learning her colors HERE  AND HERE. Zoya had a really hard time learning to match two similar items until just recently. You can see her matching the color card to the one that looks the same. It seems like a simple skill but it's not so easy to teach and it wasn't so easy for Zoya to learn...but she's got it down now :) She is able to do the same with her numbers and shapes (I havent posted about shapes yet but she has recently learned the 8 shapes in the preschool prep series). You can see her in the beginning of the video smiling with her cheesy face because she thought I was taking a picture with my phone..she didn't realize I was trying to take a video.

We recently started working on sorting colors into the correct color group.  I've been using little color counters and having her put them on the correct color character on the placemat. Next I will use different colored placemats or bowls and have her try to sort colors that way without using the color characters.

Learning Numbers

I blogged about Zoya learning her colors HERE (you can follow the link on that post to see an additional post about learning colors). Zoya has been doing fabulous learning numbers 0-10 using the same program she used to learn her colors. Zoya has shown me on multiple occassions that she knows all numbers 0-10! This video shows her doing number flashcards with the number characters on the back. She is highly motivated by knowing the characters are on the backs of the flashcards :) I'm so proud of her! We are working on helping Zoya to say the numbers since the signs are way too hard for any 2 year old, let alone one with delays in fine motor skills. She can say zero, two, and nine pretty clearly so far. Her only way to show us right now what she knows as far as her numbers are by selecting the correct choice or pointing. In the video you see her selecting from a choice of three numbers. She is able to pick out of a selection of up to 5 numbers without getting distracted, and if she is really focused she can point to the correct number characters out of all 11 numbers on her number placemat.

I will try to upload a video of her doing numbers on the iPad in another post :)

Learning Colors Part 2

Being a teacher, it only makes sense that lots of my posts are about how Zoya learns. I love working with her and learning more about her learning style and watching the light bulb go off when she learns new things!  I posted about Zoya learning her colors HERE. One thing many people with Down Syndrome have difficulty with is generalizing skills. For Zoya, she learns one concept in one way or place and then also has to be taught how to use that concept in a different way and/or place. For example, using the Preschool Prep curriculum, Zoya first learned her colors by associating them with a color character (almost like she was learning a name for each color character). She could recognize the color characters but could not then recognize the color "red" anywhere outside of the "red character." So I made some flashcards you will see in the video below to help her bridge the skill from color characters to colors in general. I put the color character on one side of a flashcard and then a blank piece of that same colored paper on the backside of the same flashcard. I would show Zoya the plain color side and ask her what color and then flip the card over so she could see the color character. She eventually learned (after much repetition and practice) that the colors are actually more than just a character. So after that I made plain colored flashcards without the characters, which you will also see in the video (you can see her asking on the red card where the red character was! haha). So little step by little step she learned to name her colors without relying on the color characters. I can't say enough how great the color character idea helped her learn her colors though! Now she is able to name colors of objects in real life like hair bows (she picks out what color she wants every morning and loves it) and colors of clothes, crayons, toys, etc. She often labels the colors of things in her environment now without prompting...she just thinks its fun! My friend who is a montessori teacher says kids should drive the learning so when they get really interested in a subject, just let them fly with it and give them the support they need to learn more about that subject! That's what we've been doing...colors, colors, and MORE colors!

It was easier for Zoya to choose the correct color from a lineup, like you saw in the ipad video in my last colors post. It was a whole new skill set to be able to simply name the color of a card when presented with a colored flashcard but she did learn how to do that after lots of repetition and practice. The next skill with colors we are working on is sorting and matching, which also requires much practice and repetition...see any pattern here? Zoya learns very well, she just needs extra opportunities for practice and repeition. Repetition is the key for many kids with special learning needs, and is especially the key for Zoya learning/memorizing things like colors/numbers, etc.

In this video you can hear Zoya doing her best to say the colors and the ones she can't say, she signs. She started out signing all the colors without verbalizations and then soon after added the verbal words or approximation for each color (so those who say signing prevents kids from speaking I disagree and think it only helps!) Green and orange are really hard for her to say so she signs them; yellow sounds like lellow with verbalization only, blue like boo with sign as well, purple is pretty close with verbalization only, black sounds like lack (with sign as well), white sounds like wwhhhyyyyyy, and red sounds like rrreeehhh with verbalization and sign. Its strange that when she is able to say the word so others know what she is saying, she drops the sign all on her own! As I said in the last color post, pink and brown are not taught in the preschool prep curriculum which bugs me, but we are just learning those two now.

So here is little Miss Zoya showing off her colors that she has worked soooo hard to learn!

Learning Colors and the iPad

Zoya is really into colors lately. We started working on colors a few months ago and she has mastered them! She loves naming the colors of everything she sees! Zoya learns best with LOTS of repetition. I found a program that works great with Zoya to teach basic concepts like colors, shapes, numbers, and letters. You can check out Preschool Prep HERE. I absolutely love these videos and books and have made some flashcards to go along with them for Zoya. We are moving from colors onto numbers. The only thing I didn't like about the colors program was that it didn't have the colors brown or pink. But otherwise the repetition of this program is exactly what Zoya needs in order to learn best. The videos are basically a screen with the color and then a "color puff" doing an activity and the narrator repeats the color name over and over and over in different tones. It seems boring to me, but Zoya just LOVES it and it has really helped her learn her colors! When Zoya was first watching this video, we'd sit with her and show her each color sign along with the color and word on the screen. I also made color flashcards to help her carry over the concept of color people to actual colors.

I'm posting a video of Zoya using an iPad app to practice colors from the same preschool prep company. They go along with the videos and Zoya just loves practicing her colors with this app. It also helps her to focus for longer periods of time. I know you're probably thinking, seriously your 2 1/2 year old has an iPad? Yes she does and it has already helped her in soooo many ways! There is a lot of research being done on children with special needs using the iPad to communicate and improve many skill areas.  We are trying out some augmentative communication apps to see which one works best with Zoya before we decide which one to buy. There are so many apps that are helping Zoya with speech, academic skills, attention and focus, and fine motor skills for sure! If you're still not convinced (or if you're using or want to use an iPad with your child) check out Babies with iPads.

In the video you can see Zoya is a little distracted :) She had already been practicing numbers and colors on the iPad for 20 minutes when I finally remembered to video tape her doing it. She cracked me up feeding the characters and Elmo her snack! You will see the one she gets wrong she hits the other two that are wrong before selecting the only one left (the right choice)...this is one thing I don't love about this app...she likes to see the other colors disappear so if I'm not right there she will intentionally pick the wrong color to watch it disappear. I wish they would just not do anything if you pick the wrong color.  It took a couple times of me just turning the iPad off and telling her all done because she wasn't listening to the directions...now she only picks the wrong one occasionally or if she is distracted or not paying attention. Using this program has really helped with her being able to say the color names as well because she hears them over and over and over....repetition is exactly what my girl needs! She can also name all the colors verbally or by signing when they're presented to her, although she is slightly less accurate, but doing pretty darn well!