Has anyone had experience in teaching young children (ages 5+6) with Down’s Syndrome to read? I have a dear friend whose 5 year old daughter has Down’s, and she is looking for the best method to use at home and to also recommend at school. If you have experience here please let me know what you recommend! Thanks!
Jenn
Re: Reading with Down's Syndrome
I have used Edmark and it is great for children to learn sight words. It does not teach any decoding skills. Depending on the student I use the Wilson program for students who will move beyond sight words. They memorize the sounds and then learn the rules on how to manipulate the sounds to form words. It teaches decoding and encoding (spelling)
Without meeting the child or knowing her current program I’d recommend Edmark. It is a sight word based program that starts with matching, without reading, and then moves into words. It has a lot of repetition and is very postive. For a student with Down’s I’d recommend using both the computerized version and the print version. Level 1 of Edmark teaches approx. 200 sight words and has the students reading at mid-to-late grade 1 level by the end. Depending on the success of the student and their ability to remember and use sounds I include some word family work after the first 50 sight words (Carl’s Corner). Hope this is helpful. I think Don Johnson sells Edmark.