Sometimes when what you are doing isn’t working, it can be so hard to change approaches. My son, Kai, who recently turned seven and is special needs with multiple diagnoses, has known all of his letters and sounds for over three years. He learned them at home in the bathtub. If you are interested in checking out this approach, you can read about it here:
I was a general education teacher for 15 years and became special education certified after I stopped working and became a stay at home mom. I taught the primary grades, lots of first grade and several years teaching ESL pre-K, which was my favorite. I also spent two years teaching adult ESL classes. So I have an idea about how to present learning how to read in a logical, scaffolding approach (starting at the beginning and building on itself).
Usually the next step after learning letters and sounds is to learn some sight words, which is whole language learning. Whole language learning is when you memorize the words so that when you see them, you have been told what they say and you remember, so that is the word that you read. Also around this time, word families tend to be introduced. This involves some sounding out and memorizing endings. So if you can read “bed,” you will also be able to read, “Ted, led, fed.” The child is taught the -ed ending and places a beginning sound in front of it, blending it together to form a word.
So since these are the next steps, this is what we, the school and Kai’s dad and I, decided should be in his goals in his IEP (individualized education program). Makes sense, right?
It’s not working.
Kai is utterly uninterested in taking this next step in learning how to read. Sight words are abstract and meaningless (it, is, to, the – not too meaningful, huh?). He doesn’t want to blend. He’s not interested in word families. In fact, the whole thing kind of pisses him off (hmm… where could this stubborness and strong-headed behavior be coming from???). My son is my most challenging student to date. He doesn’t want to follow the path that I took my students down successfully for fifteen years.
Guess what? The person who has to make the change is me.
How many times in life do we have to bang our heads into walls before we realize that we are going to get the same results the next time? The school and I have been banging our heads into walls for about 7 months now, with no progress to show for it. Or, alternatively, we could say that we have successfully discovered multiple approaches over time that absolutely do not work for Kai at this point. I like this perspective better. But, however we look at it, folks, it ain’t working. So that’s a wrap.
Does this mean that I am giving up on teaching Kai how to read? Not a chance.
It’s time to think outside the box. I have never been a huge fan of the box, anyway, so why not step outside the norm and try something new?
We are going to start with NOUNS. I made this decision and told the school that this was the new plan. So they jumped on board. Did you know that you could do that? You can!
Parents and caregivers reading this may not be too impressed with that statement, but you teachers know that this is an unusual place to start. We are going to teach Kai to read using whole language learning, picture support and nouns. This means that Kai will see a word, see a picture of the word and be told what the word says. We are starting with pictures of our family. So there will be a picture of me with the word Mom. A picture of his niece Riley with her name on it. And so on, and so forth. After family names we will show him pictures of familiar objects at home. I took pictures of his bed, cup, bowl, and a gallon of milk. The school will present Kai with the pictures, show him the words and tell him what they say.
Eventually, the pictures will be taken away and Kai will be shown the words by themselves. If he can read them, he has learned to read using whole language learning.
If you stopped me here to say that there is a complete disconnect from him learning his letters and sounds to learning to read through whole language learning, I would say that you are absolutely right. The downside to whole language learning on its own is that if you come to a word that you don’t know, you have no way to figure out what the word is. You need to be able to sound out a word and blend it to solve this problem.
The flip side? Since we are making no progress in this area right now, I would rather that Kai could read some words through whole language learning than none at all. It’s a compromise. And it’s one I’m willing to make. For now.
We will absolutely return to sight words, word families, phonics (sounding out through visuals) and phonemic awareness (identifying, hearing and working with units of sound). Maybe Kai will be willing to do it later on.
Or maybe he won’t.
By being flexible and willing to abandon tradition in favor of what works for my son in the here and now, we can help him to progress in his own time.
I urge you when you hit a wall in the progress of your child with special needs to consider changing your approach. THIS IS NOT A FAILURE. It is a smart strategy to use for everything from their education to their therapies to their behavior modification plans. You are not changing the goal – growth for your child. You are exchanging what is not working for something that might work. And, if the new plan doesn’t work, guess what? It’s time to try a third plan. How will you know when it’s time to stop changing strategies? Something will work. And then you stick with it until it stops working. And then you change again.
Stuck for ideas? That’s what all of these teachers, therapists, assistants, coaches get paid for. Ask them to help. Have a meeting. Brainstorm.
And bring those folks some chocolate. They like that.
Have you ever changed strategies when something wasn’t working for your child with special needs and achieved success? Please share in the comments below.