Another special needs new user

The Little Lounge Introduce Yourself
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Hi there,

I found this recently via recommendations several other places online. We’re working on the trial version right now, and so far really enjoying it. I have 2 kids, a 7-year-old who’s already an avid reader, and 4-year-old with Down syndrome. He’s the one I’m currently doing LR with. I tried flash cards with him a while back, and while he learned them at first, he quickly decided they weren’t very fun and wouldn’t even look at them. We’ve only done a few days of LR, but he never protests yet, and generally likes the computer, so I think maybe we’ve found a hit. He’s not very verbal but signs a lot, and he loves to sign the words or point to the part of the face as we watch. I think having pictures and videos of other children makes it more exciting that just plain flash cards too. I’m looking forward to continuing and to meeting more of you on here!

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Welcome! I also have a 4 year old with DS & and have had good luck with both flashcards as well as the Little Reader program. I have found that reading has helped my daughter’s speech immensely, so hopefully you will notice the same thing with your son & he’ll become more chatty soon. I look forward to hearing more about him & his progress.

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Thanks! Actually it was your mention of this on the yahoo group (HS&DS) that first led me here and to your blog, which I enjoyed. Your daughter’s reading is impressive! I’m a bit of a “research junkie” too - I really enjoy finding new curricula and learning more about them. So I appreciated your run-down of the various reading programs you’ve tried or looked at. We’ve been using Love & Learning too, and my son knows his letter sounds now from the Letter Factory DVD. I’ve been taking apart the L&L books and making my own flash cards from them, and simple readers to go with them. But it takes quite a bit of time. I think LR will accomplish the same thing with less prep time.

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Welcome! I am mom to a 6 yr old boy with DS. Like your son, he learned all the letters from the Letter Factory DVD, when he was about 3 1/2. We also tried Love and Learning with some success, but while he liked the DVDs, he wasn’t greatly interested in the little books with nothing but black words on white background and line drawings on every other page. He did learn all the words in Kit 1, and we cut the books apart and made flashcards with which he sometimes enjoyed playing a matching game. But I could never get him much interested in practicing the words in the Kit 2 little books. And he wasn’t greatly interested in learning additional flashcards. We have had the Little Reader program for just a little over a month, now, and he never balks at doing his Little Reader lesson. I have imported some pictures of family members into the program–close ups of parts of the body or pictures showing some of the action words–and he is delighted to see pictures of himself or a brother or a sister come up. I repeat each lesson for 2 or 3 days, to give him extra practice on the same sets of words before they change. And it is working! :slight_smile: He knows all the words in the first 10 Lessons. And he is reading two of the little books! :smiley: His lack of verbal skills used to be one of my major concerns, but between his 4th and 5th birthdays, he made steady progress, and now he is quite verbally capable. So, he repeats all the words on Little Reader after the voice says the word. After he has done a particular lesson several times, I turn the sound all the way down during the Multisensory Lesson and let him tell me what the words are. He also gets to control the mouse and click to the next word or picture. Makes him feel big to use Mommy’s computer. I did recently purchase a computer program from Love & Learning. It is Totally Words Word-Picture Match program. He likes it a lot and can do it all by himself. They review 6 words and then those six words appear on a six squares on a large grid. A picture appears at the top and he finds the word that matches the picture and puts the mouse arrow on the word and clicks it. If he is correct, that word and its square disappear revealing a small bit of a picture underneath. Then another picture appears at the top and the process is repeated until all the words have been found and the entire hidden picture is revealed. If your son already knows some of the words in Love & Learning, then he would be able to do some of the first puzzles. And no talking is required! He can do the same puzzle over as many times as he wants or go to a new puzzle, which will retire 2 words and add 2 new words. There are a total of 240 words in the program, so although my son already know 30 or more of them, there are plenty to keep him learning. It is simple, yet effective. No distracting animation. Best wishes for your son’s learning adventure! Justin’s Mom

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Thanks for sharing how your son is doing - I’m glad to know that verbal progress might be just around the corner! It sounds like Justin is really starting to take off in reading too - that’s great! Thanks too for the tip on Totally Words.