We've mostly been working on letters for the last month. Some of the non-letters work we've done was on matching baby animals to grown-up animals. Becca thought that was fun. ...actually that's the only non-letters thing I can remember doing. I need to be better about getting more non-letters things mixed in, it's just that letters is taking a lot of time and review.
Basically we introduce a new letter every couple days. I hold up a uppercase and lowercase version of the letter and we talk about it, draw the shapes, make the letter sound, and think of words that start with that sound. I always have at least one picture that starts with the letter, where it's the picture and also the word typed out with the first letter highlighted. We're trying to work on reading with her inner voice, so I prompt Becca a lot to say the letters in her head or make the sounds in her head.
When we review old letters she seems to do a pretty good job of saying whether she recognizes the letters. That is, she says she knows B and A and their sounds really well, but she struggles remembering D, and the fact that C makes a "kuh" sound is hard for her to remember too. The newer letters are still pretty hard to recognize. We've played a sound matching game a couple times, where we stick pictures on her board and then I ask her to find the picture that starts with the letter I hold up. A couple times on B and S she's done it without any additional prompting, but usually she needs to hear the sound the letter makes, and then she can find a picture that starts with the sound.
She pretty consistently (eighty percent? I haven't been counting) can find a correct picture (sometimes there would be more than one) by looking at the picture and then back at me. She does tend to look around at all the pictures, and sometimes she gets caught on one even if it's not the right sound, but with some additional prompting she'll usually keep looking. When she wouldn't engage well I would then scan through the pictures with her, saying the picture out loud and then asking if it had the right sound. There were only a few times we had to get to that point, but then we ended up at the right answer. Probably twice she selected the wrong picture before scanning, and she either changed her mind when I tried to confirm, or when she confirmed the wrong pictured and I said that didn't match she laughed. I'm pretty sure at this point she likes to tease.
A couple times when she reacted before the word was fully combined I'd ask if she thought she knew the word already. If she said yes then I'd say let's try and find the picture. I'd hold up different pictures and ask if they matched the word. The three times we did this she correctly picked the right picture.
One time was particularly awesome, I held up b-a-t and she reacted before I'd pointed out any of the letters or anything. I asked if she thought she knew the word and she said yes. I held up a cat and asked if that was the word, and she didn't say yes. Then I held up a sun and again she didn't say yes. I held up a picture of a bat and asked and she said yes. We celebrated a lot on that one :-). Becca read a word!
So far we've worked on the following letters: B, A, S, T, C, D, E, N, U and G.
This blog is for and about our little girl, Becca. Becca was born with low muscle tone and has been consistently behind in her development. She's now six years old and doesn't walk or talk or feed herself. In 2010 Becca was diagnosed with Rett Syndrome, a neurological disorder caused by a genetic mutation.
It is simply amazing to me that you can be so constant and vigilant in doing this work with such a sweet little girl. Your patience is the thing that really stands out. You will be blessed one day when she can really communicate like the rest of us. I'm very proud (in the right way) to be the father of such a fine man as you.
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