Zoya Reading (Video)

It's been a while since I wrote any posts about education on my blogs! Just to recap, Zoya attends preschool 5 days a week for 3 hours each morning. I work with her at home about 30 minutes on average each day on the list of goals I've set (longer on the weekends when she's not in school).  She loves "doing work with mama" which is what she calls it! Zoya loves reading and is really very good at it! She's been working on a sight word foundation and recently I've started working on a phonics approach with her to continue expanding her reading abilities! She's using some awesome beginning reader strategies to decode new words, such as using picture clues paired with sounding out the new word! For anyone who might be wondering, we used Preschool Prep Co. as a foundation to learn her first sight words. You can find previous blog posts where we used Preschool Prep Co. HERE.  After she mastered those sight words, she began working on the Fry Word List's top 300 functional words for reading, writing, and spelling. The book in the first video is a printable from A to Z Reading. I loved this site when I was teaching, and love it even more now that I'm teaching my girls. You can sign up for a free trial and print lots of materials! Math is a whole other story and a little more difficult for Zoya....I'm working on some videos to share what we've been working on in that area too! I'm proud of her determination and she is so proud of herself when she watches these videos! I take videos of her reading mainly so she can watch them back...I find it's really helpful in motivating her and improving her fluency!

Here are a couple videos of Zoya reading:

And one of her learning to pedal a bike....has nothing to do with reading but it's a new skills and she's just so adorable :) 

More Fun with the Light Box!

Since Zoya was at school when I did the light box with the little ones, she got her turn while they were napping yesterday! We've worked really hard this summer on simple consonant-vowel-consonant words and learned some word families. Here we were working on the "at" family. Zoya was sounding out the words and changing out the first letter to make new words! Love seeing her face in these pictures, working so hard to read the words! I love these little transparent colored letters. Grandma and Grandpa B got them for Zoya :) 

I gave her a pile of letters to spell her name. 

So proud of herself! 

She's learning to spell her sister's names too! 

Then we worked on some counting! 

I love our little light box and so do the girls! There are so many uses for it! 

Fall Learning Fun!

We are staying dry and warm inside! School was cancelled because of Hurricane Sandy. This is definitely the first time school has ever been cancelled here for a hurricane HAHA! 

I've been meaning to post these pictures of a fun learning activity I did with the girls (mostly Zoya). 

I made my own lightbox with inspiration from THIS BLOG. The girls love it and there are so many different activities you can do with a light box!

This time, we used transparent pumpkins and leaves that I found in the dollar section of Target. First I just let Zoya play and explore (always a must with new materials....if I don't give her this time to play and explore new materials, the lesson is usually a bust!) Mila loved watching Zoya! Unfortunately these pieces were too small for Mila to play with (choking hazard). After Zoya played a bit, we read a couple of stories....one about Leaves and one about Pumpkins. 

 Zoya was practicing counting. She picked a number card and then placed that number of items under the card. She needed more help at the beginning but eventually caught on to this idea. 

 I did it!

 She decided to read through the leaf book on her own. I love watching Zoya read a book after I've read it to her. Typically she uses the pictures to retell the story and usually hits some main ideas with her retell. 

 She thought that page was funny I guess! 

 We worked on sorting by color. Zoya has this skill down, but it was a good review and also good practice to increase her time on task (which is one of her IEP goals at school too). 

 We've just started working on basic patterns. This concept (even alternating between two colors) is tough for Zoya. I think next time I will cut out color squares and make a paper pattern and have her put the correct color on the correct square. We need to back that concept up a bit! 

 The next morning we went outside and collected leaves and read our Leaves story again! 

I love making learning fun for my girls! 

Zoya Learning to Read!

If you've been following this blog for some time, you'll know that I love all things from the Preschool Prep Company!  You'd think they're paying me to endorse them, but really, I just love their products and curriculum for Zoya! If you click on the "preschool prep" label or put it into the search feature on this blog, you'll see I used the Preschool Prep programs as a basis to teach Zoya her letters, numbers, colors, and shapes.

Just like the other concepts, the sight word program has DVDs and flashcards, and little readers that you can purchase. There are 3 DVDs each with 16 sight words presented on each DVD. The sight words are chosen from Fry and Dolch sight word lists (research-based most frequently read sight words). We started by watching the first 4 sight words on the DVD and using the flashcards to practice during the DVD and after and in between watching the DVD. When she mastered those 4 words, we moved on to the next 4 and so on. As you can see the flashcards have a black-print word on one side and then a "character" word on the other side. Zoya starts by becoming familiar with the "character" whose name is "play" for example, and then transfers it to the black-print word. I love that way of teaching it to her! Once we got through the first DVD, I used only the words presented on the DVD to start pairing 2 and 3 words into phrases. For example, I'd put 2 word cards side by side to make it say "I play." Very simple. Then I'd add another word to make it say "I play that." The little readers that came with the program have all the sight words from the first DVD as well as other words. I made flashcards for the words that were not on the DVD or in the flashcard pack to teach those as well.

Slowly I started adding more and more words to make the sentences more complex. I pair word cards and picture cards to vary the difficulty of the sentence. As Zoya masters the words, she no longer needs the picture side of the cards. In some of the videos you can see she still flips the word over to remind herself of the picture on the other side. This is a great strategy because it teaches her to use picture cues to decode and recall words, which is a great reading strategy for young readers. I took sentences right out of the little reader books and formed them using word cards. After Zoya got better at this, I transferred her to the actual book, reading the same sentences. She is so proud of herself and I'm so proud of her! My sweet girl is newly 4 and already beginning to read!

In my experience teaching children with special needs, I find children with Down Syndrome do very well with sight-word based programs to use as a foundation, and then, if they're able, to progress to a phonics-based approach.

I love letting Zoya use different "pointers" to read her sentences, such as the princess star wand you'll see in one of the videos.

Here are some videos of my big girl READING!!

(My favorite one)

I can't wait to hear Zoya read to me more! I just love her sweet voice!

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!

Video Cuteness

Zoya has been quite the big little girl lately! She has almost perfected the finger shake that goes along with "no, no no!" I don't shake my finger at her, but Zoya thinks it is funny when Mya is being bad and we tell her no and shake our finger at her! So, in true Zoya fashion, she took the "no no no" up a notch and had the following conversation with me on Sunday:

Me: "Zoya, finish eating your lunch, then we are going to take a sleep"

Zoya: "No, No, No" (shaking finger at me), then signs 'play'

Me: "Ummmm I don't think so. You need to take a sleep."

Zoya: (long pause) looks right at me and says, "No."

(In case you're wondering she DID take a nap! Mom wins!)

In the video with Mya, you can see Zoya telling her "no." We were telling her to say it so we could catch that cute little finger!! But Zoya will often shake her finger at Mya and tell her no no no just like this! She is the boss of Mya, or so she thinks! The other video is Zoya's favorite game to play with Daddy...flying full speed into Mya! You can see her shaking her body when Shawn stops as if to say...."let's go daddy!" Her laugh is so contagious! This video is for Zoya's friend Izzy :) Hi Izzy!

This last video is Zoya "reading" her book I made for her. It has people Zoya knows and loves and sees often. Each page has a picture of a person (most pages are a picture of someone WITH Zoya in the picture) and at the bottom it says, "I See (name)." When we first got the book (from Shutterfly) we just worked on identifying people and looking at the cute pictures. She loves this book and asks for it often. Recently we started working on saying three words together, "I SEE MAMA," "I SEE DADA," etc. Tonight was was saying all three words together with no verbal cues from me! I still gave her lots of physical cues like opening my mouth to reminder to start with "I" and point to each word as a cue to say the next word. Obviously she isn't really reading or really even paying a whole lot of attention to the words (she does look at them at times though) but she did a super job saying three words together!  This is the very beginning stage or reading, turning pages and watching someone point to the words and vocalizing.  So although reading is way far off for Zoya I think it's pretty darn cute to watch her "read."  Even though it might be hard for people who don't know her to understand her, we know exactly what she is saying! You can hear "aaaahhhhhh ssssssssssseee and then the name.  In this video, she does a really super job with Uncle Bub's picture especially. It is really hard work for her and you can see where she gets flustered a couple times. It's almost like her brain has all the information and trying to organize it and get it from there to her lips is such hard work for her! I'm so proud of my little girl for trying so hard! Right after this video she got down and a minute later brought the book right back to me and wanted to "read" again.