The Plan, The Hope, The Road to Literacy

Yesterday I shared our journey to diagnosis; today, I will detail the plan that fuels my hope. As there is much work to be done, the plan is lengthy and detailed, so the post is long.  

Once we had a diagnosis, names to put to all the things standing in the way of The Adventurer's ability to learn, we set out to find answers. Tools. Activities. A plan.

The Edu-Psych we used was an absolute gem in that regard; if any of my readers are in the Houston area and need an evaluation for their child, let me know, I will pass on her name and information. She was a treasure to us. She provided in her report not only a name for the problem, but also 13 pages of curriculum suggestions, adaptive technologies we should begin using, free activities I could do with The Adventurer at home, links to websites that have games and materials that can serve as therapeutic activities for him, and referrals for follow-up testing.

She also wrote out what accommodations he would need in a typical classroom setting, so that I would feel free to adapt and so that if we ever put him into a typical classroom, we will have the first step in place to getting him the help he needs. She gave us a plan, a plan that holds out hope. A plan that will lead to success.

It has taken me from September until now, early January, to turn all of her suggestions into a workable routine. I was, at first, very overwhelmed. There is a LOT that needs to be worked on. I laid all of that out in the last post, so I won't go over it again. Trust me when I say it has been a very daunting task, I have had many moments of panic and fear of failure. I have stared, weeping, into The Chemist's eyes and cried, "I can't do this" with a despair that made his heart ache as much as mine. Yet every time, he calmed me, reassured me, and directed me back to the materials, the curriculums, the activities that the Edu-Psych suggested and that we bought, and reminded me that yes, yes I can.

He's right. We have a name for what we're fighting. We have tools. Others have gone before and written curriculum and software and games that have been proven to work against this. We are not all alone, and we do have hope and a plan.

So, what is the plan? In a nutshell......

*he does a Scribbles page while I read Bible & History out-loud
*we do one activity from the Therapy Drawer
*I teach him the next math lesson in the book, and he does the assignment in the workbook
*we do another activity from the Therapy Drawer
*we do Handwriting Without Tears (HWT), cycling through the various hands-on activities
*he gets time for free play, usually with math manipulatives or handwriting manipulatives
*after this break, he does Computer School (aka, therapy software)
*and when he is done, he picks a fun game for a rewared

The Adventurer does school (shown: Handwriting Without Tears)
He works in the kitchen. Quiet, with no distractions.
I sit to his side, so we can be face to face while I read & give instructions,
so he can watch my mouth while I talk, which helps his brain receive what I'm saying.

Now, what does all of that mean???

Scribbles Pages --- this is a directed coloring book. What that means is that each 2-page spread has a one-sentence instruction across the top. Today, for example, he had "Who is looking out of the windows? Draw them."  Below that was a house and a barn, with three empty windows showing. He drew a stick-figure person in one, a cat in another (with a trip to my kitchen window to show that the cat was standing on the windowsill), and a skeleton in the third window. This works his following directions skills as well as fine motor skills, and helps him to transition from Not School Time to School Time. Mostly this is transition, so he can get his brain into school mode.

skeleton is bottom left window; cute, huh? 

Math --- we use Singapore Math as his primary math, with Miquon sometimes thrown in, and LOTS of hands-on with math manipulatives. Counting bears, counting squares, linking cubes, gram/centimeter cubes, pattern blocks (with several sets of cards to use with them), Cuisenaire Rods, and Base 10 Unit Sticks (the little marked rods that show 1, 10, or 100). He is working through book 1B of Singapore right now, and Miquon Orange.

math book open (Singapore 1B), and pencil with pencil grip
the pencil grip helps correct the dysgraphia (difficulty writing) that he also has

HWT --- he is doing a quick pass through the PreK book (reviewing each letter, learning the HWT way of making each letter, reviewing sounds letters make, etc.) before moving on to the K level book. I expect we will spend roughly 5 to 7 weeks going through the PreK book before going forward.

the Handwriting Without Tears drawer
still labeled as Math; I need to switch that
We had to put labels up on things so he would have text in his environment that is also in English

We follow a routine with this; Monday I show the Capital Letter Card for each letter we'll cover that week, and he uses the wooden pieces to make each one on the outline that is on the card. Tuesday he uses the mat to make the letters, only looking at the card if needed, then he traces some of the letters in the workbook. Wednesday he traces the remaining letters and uses play dough to make them (using the Roll-a-Dough kit). Thursday he draws each letter on a slate, with chalk, using the Wet-Dry-Try method as outlined in HWT. Friday we do the letter/picture matching that is on the back of each capital letter card and review what the lower case version looks like.

Computer School --- he is using a software called Earobics for help with his Auditory Processing and Phonemic Awareness; he will need to make serious progress in this before we begin the reading curriculums (yes, plural) that we will one day use to teach him to read. I will detail this in a later post, but basically it involves identifying rhyming sounds, are two sounds the same or different, does a spoken word contain a target sound, and learning to do all of those while background noise is masking the target sounds. The software auto-adjusts based on his proficiency.

Finally, what is in the Therapy Drawer??  I cycle through the activities in this drawer now; from September to December we did just these activities, 30  minutes a day of working on something from each category. That is while we were waiting on the curriculum to come in (mail takes a while from US to S. America). He likes rotating much better. Here's what we do, and what area each activity targets.

the therapy drawer

assorted games, manipulatives, fine motor practice,
and miscellany that he uses for free play time or game reward time

the books and play dough storage
he uses play dough as a free play/game reward;
he doesn't realize it is also helping the fine motor/hand strength issues.

Random Access Naming --  I keep a variety of flashcards in the drawer, and we do 2 minute drills. I show a card to The Adventurer, he names the object on the card, I write down how many objects he named in a 2 minute time span. This speeds up how long it takes his eyes to see something, his brain to get the message, and then send the name to his mouth, and his mouth to verbalize the answer.

When we started, he got 12 to 15 objects in a 1 minute period. He now gets over 50 in 2 minutes. For variety & double-duty, I use First Thousand Words (by Usborne); I have him quickly name all the objects that are around the page, then we play hide & seek, finding each object in the picture. That works his visual scanning/visual processing speed, yet feels like one activity.

Digit-Span -- this is a fancy name for "how many letters, numbers, words, or combo thereof can you remember if said to you in a row?"  I use number flashcards and games for this. When we started, I would just go through saying the digits of all the family birthdays. It was exhausting to think up numbers. Flashcards are much easier; I pull 4 to 6 random cards, show them & say them (hiding them once shown), and then he has to repeat back to me the numbers I said. He is supposed to do this backwards, too, but we've not worked up to that yet. This is to strengthen his working memory.

For variety, I use games such as "I'm going to Grandma's, and I'm taking a ......" where I say one object, he repeats the phrase & my object, then adds his own object; I repeat the whole thing back to him and add a 3rd object, and so forth & so on. I also double this up by changing where we are going; another activity we're to do is "name things in a given category" so I will say "I went to the beach and I saw...." and everything we name has to be beach related. I love activities that can be double-duty.

Sequencing -- I bought a set of cards for this. I lay out 3 or 4 cards, each depicting a scene from an ordered bit of action (ex: a child on home plate, bat at the ready; child hitting the ball; child running away from home plate; child safely on 1st base) and he has to put them in order. We do 3 to 5 sets of cards per session, depending on his tolerance that day. This strengthens the foundation for story comprehension, works his visual scanning, and helps him order material which will carry over into listening and ordering when he hears a story.

Worksheets -- I print worksheets from www.edHelper.com (a subscription website), Highlights Kids.com (free), No-Glamour Memory book on CD (purchased CD) and assorted other places. Worksheets I print are to work on following directions, matching, visual scanning (hidden pictures, for example), listening skills (for example, I read a series of clues and he has to circle the correct picture), etc. Matching can be picture matching, number matching, number to set of objects, letter to letter, uppercase to lowercase, etc.

Matching -- he's supposed to work on matching, for visual processing issues. Aside from the worksheets, we do ABC bingo, Eye Spy matching cards, Memory games, Go Fish (using assorted cards, sometimes numbers, sometimes letters, sometimes pictures), Jr. Yahtzee (Mario version), Dwarves & Dice game, Teddy Bear Match-Up, Uno, and Dominoes. Variety, variety, variety.

Storytelling -- I bought Rory Story Cubes for this. This is to work on one of his strengths, as well as strengthen story comprehension. I choose a few of the dice, roll them, and he has to make up a picture using at least 2 of the pictures shown on the dice. I don't make him use more than that, because he's just starting. Usually though he is able to incorporate everything; he is a dramatic and very creative story teller, as long as he's in a story telling mood.

Sometimes I record his stories, type them up, print them in large fonts, and we use them for story time later. Again, to help with comprehension, listening, etc. and also to practice "reading" or pre-reading -- by following along, he learns to track, turn the page when we get to the end, and since he knows the story he can start to more easily connect the written words to the things I'm saying; suddenly, the type on the page means something, and that helps him realize he can pay attention to text around him.

Following Directions --  This is to help with auditory processing as well as working memory, and we mainly play games. Lots and lots of games.Simon Says. Mother May I. "Where's Wario?" (I tell him where to hide a toy; he has to hide it). Scavenger hunts (oral clues). I also made up a game where he has to tell me true or false and repeat after me; I say a sentence about our kitchen (or whatever room we're in), he has to listen, tell if it's true, and repeat back to me what I said. If I say something silly, I then say the true version and he repeats that.

He likes when I say totally nutty stuff, like "my mom is the  most beautiful mom in the world!" He laughs and laughs and says "that's false!" until I correct it and say "My mom is kind of pretty" at which point he says, "hmmm, yes, that is true." (of course I am talking about his mom, not mine) (yes, that's a true story)

Fine Motor Skills --- for this he plays with play dough, does lacing cards, bead stringing, and colors things that require detail coloring. The HWT helps with this, as does the Scribbles book and using a pencil grip to write. These activities also help improve his visual-motor coordination (aka, hand-eye coordination).

drawing with & without the pencil grip
each pair shows one with, one without, the pencil grip
center: stick figure (L is with, R is without)
top center: cup of water (L is with, R is without)
bottom center: Christmas tree (L is with, R is without)
right: House (top is with, bottom is without)
left: cat (top is with, bottom is without)
using the pencil grip makes a visible difference

Perceptual Reasoning/Visual-Spatial Reasoning --- this is his biggest strength; he tested near the upper limits on this subtest. To help him stay challenged in this area and have time with one of his strengths, he has tangrams, pattern blocks, a geoboard with rubber bands and designs to copy, and various games that work with this (Rush Hour, and several other ThinkFun games). His fine motor & perceptual reasoning activities are just reserved for free time/game reward time and aside from the Scribbles page and HWT these are NOT scheduled parts of his school day. He enjoys the games/activities, so we use them as a reward and unstructured playtime instead. 

Whew! Are you as tired as I am now??? Our day actually flows much better now that we're rotating the Therapy Drawer activities instead of doing several of each every day. The Earobics software drills a lot of the same things I was drilling before, the handwriting and Scribbles pages both work fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination (oh yeah; he's also supposed to work on his hand-eye coordination), listening to stories out loud helps his reading/listening comprehension better than anything else could, etc. Once we are fully through the Kindergarten book for HWT, I will start the multiple reading curriculums with him. For now, on the reading front, we've got an ABC chart going around the walls in his bedroom, and we are working on learning sight words and creating opportunities for environmental print.

No, this doesn't mean environmentally friendly, it means print that he sees in his day to day environment. Since all signs, restaurants, billboards, and generally all print that he sees in the world around him is not in English, we have to label things in our home and create a word wall for him so that he can really start associating print/text with objects, realizing that letters make words, and words stand for things. One of the pitfalls of living internationally, and not something we anticipated.

Moving to literacy is going to be a slow, long road; a marathon, not a sprint. But with this plan, I do have hope; hope we'll get there, hope he will read, hope he might one day not need me to scribe for him when he "writes" all of his stories; hope for his success. More than hope, I have confidence. He can do this, and I can teach him how.