We just started our trial today and plan to use it 1-2 times a day. My son is 6yo and has Down syndrome 
I heard about this program on the āWe Can Do All Thingsā blog. Weāve already used the āYour Baby Can Readā program with great success. It looks like weāll be able to go a little further with this program, which is awesome!! My challenge is always the question of what I can do next with our son to keep him progressing rather than doing the same things over and over that heās already mastered. Looking forward to getting to know more moms of kids with DS! BTW, we are a homeschooling family
Amy, I think your comment about having interest is really important. You may feel like your child just doesnāt show he or she is understanding and many parents then stop, however you will notice small differences like an extended period of time that she may watch with more interest. Each time will be longer and longer, her attention span is getting longer and longer, these little milestones are very important for our children yet we donāt really focus on them. But believe me, it wonāt be long until they are required to sit and have the patience to listen to instructions and act on them. These daily sessions are crucial for the childās development. So stick with it, if you feel like you see no response, I bet you notice their attention span is longer, then the signing and talking will all roll along.
Did anyone purchase the program after receiving a scholarship? Was the process difficult? If you received a scholarship may I ask for how much? I am trying to convince my husband that this would be a good thing to purchase but he isnāt so sure. We are just trying out the free trial now so hopefully my son will fall in love and my husband canāt deny him that
Hi Tbone Manwich,
The Foundation kindly asks members to please maintain discretion in regards to sharing their specific scholarship award details. Applications are reviewed solely on a case by case basis, so what is true for one family may not be true for yours. After applying for a scholarship, you most likely receive an answer from EEECF in about one month or less and then you will know exactly where you stand. Thank you!
Welcome to the community and I wish you the best of luck teaching your baby! Please check back in and let us know how things are going.
TmT
Hi everyone!
For anyone who is interested in a special needs scholarship grant for our Little Reader program, you might find this page of interest:
http://www.eeecf.org/sponsorships/individual-sponsorships.php
The way that our grants work is that depending on the documents which you are able to submit to us, we will gauge your need for the program, and also dependent on the financial capability of the applicant family, we provide free Little Reader programs with either Semester 1 only or the full Semester 1+2.
We would love to see how we can help others, especially families blessed with children with special needs, so if youāre interested, do try to apply! :happy:
I just want to say publicly thank-you so much to the brillkids foundation (or eeecf) for the scholarships we recieved for LR, LM and LMs for our daughter with autism/developmental delays. So refreshing to come across an organisation with such a strong desire to help children with special needs to achieve all they can. I have also always been so impressed with the speed at which I have recieved responses to any of my requests. Great job and thank-you again. Now I just need to work out how to download the new version of LR as I keep reading how great it isā¦
Thank you for kind words, Jenene, we are happy to help. We hope your child enjoys the programs and looking forward to your updates! Let us know if you have any questions or need any help.
I will usually teach like the lesson says. It seems that my child with DS is such a visual learner that she picks up on stuff (visually) well before my typical kids do/would.
cinny
In the book āTeaching Reading to Children with Down Syndromeā by Patricia Logan Oelwein, the author said that they originally developed the reading program to help kids who were non-verbal to communicate. The book is a great resource. My son is older with Down Syndrome and Autism and non-verbal. He loves Little Reader curriculum. I do it with him twice a day. I am also doing the āTeaching Reading to Children with Down Syndromeā modified to use picture exchange as the labeling. I use SymbolStix picture symbols https://www.n2y.com/symbolstix/default.aspx
For signing if you think he is capable but not willing then the Verbal Behavior approach by starting with what he is motivated to have. So if he loves to watch a certain video like Sponge Bob you can let him watch a little bit, then pause and start with modeling the sign for movie saying only movie, then physically prompt him to do the sign and give more video, then repeat and then next time model say movie then hand over hand model but maybe wait half a second before hand over hand prompting.
We are just starting using the trial and our almost 2 year old seems to love it! We donāt always get through one session in one sitting but heās been ill and isnāt quite right yet. heās had such a slow start to life for various health reasons that I would love it if this could help him.
what input should I be giving while itās running?
How do you get it to repeat say āhorseā where it has the neigh sound or are you just not meant to?
Iām so sorry but Iām new here and I just canāt work out how to move around the forum and find threads that Iāve posted on. Can you help??
We have just started the trial with our LO who will be 2 on Monday 
i meant
This is amazing - our LO has started pointing out body parts of his own accord and Iām sure itās because of the LR programme! We are using it slowly as sometimes we donāt get through a whole session in one go and we are going back over thing too. I donāt want him to get bored though.
I did see mention that you could add words and recordings yourself to it? At what stage do you do this and what sort of things are you all adding?
My dd is 21 months old. I am just starting to do flash cards with her. She knows some signs and is verbal. I am going to start the free trial and see how it goes. I wish I had learned about this earlier 
My son is 7 and have just found this curriculum. We have 5 or 6 sight word curriculum sets but just canāt seem to find the right fit. Thinking I will try the free trial and see how it goes. Making flashcards myself is so time consuming.
Looks like this program is very organized and well layed out for the parent as well.
I also want to say thank you for the scholarship! My little girl is 4 months old and we started with the program yesterday! We are doing it twice a day and have big red flash cards with familiar words like momma, daddy, etc. We start our NACD ND program in a month and Iām hoping they will work this curriculum into our program.
Thanks again!!
Thank you all for all the wonderful updates! :happy: We greatly appreciate you all posting even these small updates about our program, and I personally wish you and your families continued success in your learning adventures!
Iām glad to hear the program is working so well for many of you!
I think one important thing to remember (& sorry if Iām repeating myself but his is soooo important) is that you need to trust that your little one, even those with a label, is very smart & taking in more than you can imagine!
hello everyone,
I am glad to see that this program helped your kids. My daughter Elizabeth is 5 months old today and we plan on using this program as well. We want to start with the free trial tomorrow see how she reacts. I know she is still little and not able to do too much but i think itās never too early to start working with her in all possible ways. Thank you all for posting your experiences and please continue to that, it helps the new parents like me
Roxana
Hi all!
My son Mack is 7 months old. We started with the free trial today. I can say that after one round, he seemed to be very interested. I am just excited to get started and I think that if I am able to print out cards with words on them, it will be a big help too. For those of you that have been doing this for a while, is this all you do in regards to reading, or do you add other components of other curriculums or programs? Right now, most everything is going to be input input input as he is so young. Just wondering what else I can doā¦ Thanks!!
Michelle