Frogs, Farms, Fish, and Naps. What do we have in common?

At the end of the school year my husband and I met with Chase's teachers and the Special Education coordinator for the district.   With the wonderful help he has received from the school he scored in the normal range, however his ADHD diagnosis will keep him under the other health impaired (OHI)  umbrella.  Good!!!  We also learned that he definitely has Sensory Processing Disorder on top of everything else.

On Thursday we met Chase's Service Coordinator through the Developmental Services.  She recommended that we ask for a  "Sensory Diet"  in his IEP.  I look forward to learning more about this and incorporating these types of sensory activities with our reading excersizes!!!!  She recommended a weighted blanket (He likes to sleep under about 5 or six blankets each night) and she is going to see if he qualifies for Touchpoint Autism Services, which would be a great help for our entire family. His coordinator is also going to see what the age limit for Exceptional Equestrians Research Program for Autism.  If he is too young than she will help us get a scholarship for next fall.  How awesome would it be for him to be able to learn how to ride horses.

A few thoughts stood out to me as I prepared this weeks activities.  These include the importance of the words children learn before they even begin to read, realizing the importance of knowing how to break language into smaller components, and how comprehension is found in all aspects of life.  Here are a few tidbits that I pulled out of my readings as I prepared:

 

• "The ability to read is strongly dependent on the word forms learned" (Sousa, 2005, p. 33) from listening to those around them, practicing new words and learning to use them in context, having parents correct them when they make mistakes, and from other sources.  As their vocabularies grow children begin to become aware of onset and rimes.  
• Onsets are the first sounds a child hears in a word, and the rime is what is left over after you take that sound out.  For example the word "log" the onset is /l/ and the rime is /og/.  It became clear that Chase is beginning to identify onset rimes.  Today he sat on the edge of our couch and for some reason started calling out"" Bear,  /b/ear, bear starts with b"  He did this for quite sometime.  It made me quite content.  
• Did you know that reading comprehension is tied up with listening comprehension?  

Good stuff.  I absolutely adore David A. Sousa's book How The Brain Learns to Read.  Not only does it contain fascinating information on how the brain functions in the process of reading but it also has some great strategies. If you are ever interested in learning more about the brain and how it helps your child learn to read I have a PowerPoint Presentation I created while working on my Masters that I would love to share with you.  Just send me a request.

Phonological Awareness

Alphabetic Knowledge

Letter Sort: Sort pictures of objects that begin with the letters F and P.  I was so pleased at how quickly Chase accomplished this task.  He was so pleased with himself afterward that he just clapped and said "Yeah, I did it." 
 
Use a play-dough mat to form the letter Ff.  He had been asking for days to play with play-dough, and this was the perfect controlled environment for it (otherwise it ends up ground up into the carpet).

He created a letter "Ff" book.    He had fun drawing a picture of a flag, fish, and frog.  It was adorable watching him look at the picture of each thing and then draw it himself.  He struggled with tracing over the dots so I had him write the word.  I told him which letter to write and he did it.  When he got to the letter /h/ he said "I don't know how!"  I told him to write a line and then a little /n/ at the bottom.

Phonemic Awareness

Finger play to nursery songs.  The local library has this cute little "Speckled Frog" set and we had fun singing the song as the kids took turns taking the little frogs off the log and putting them into the pool "where it was nice and cool".  I then had Chase look at the numbers on the back of the frogs and put them back in order on the log.  Look at how hard he is concentrating!!!!

Vocabulary

• My kids love, love, love looking at the PowerPoint Presentations I prepare. This week I chose the book A Nap in a Lap by Sarah Wilson.  It was fun coming up with pictures of the kids for cuddled, cozied, and cradled.  My favorite one was of the boys asleep. 

Comprehension

 The kids and I participated in a book talk before reading A Nap in a Lap.  We talked about where we liked to take naps.  The kids said they liked to take naps in their beds.  I told them about funny places they have taken naps and showed them pictures of Chase sleeping on a cheerios box.  They got a good giggle out of that one. 

Fluency

Choral Read A Nap in a Lap by Sarah Wilson.  This week Chase has INSISTED on reading by himself.  What this basically involves is he chooses a book and repeats a phrase after me.  This is a perfect opportunity to choral read.  I love to choral read poems, but it worked well with this weeks book of choice.


Edited 6/28/2012