FM.J.118 MATCHES WORD LOTTO, CHOICE OF 4

This skill is a direct prerequisite for learning to read, but at this stage it does not matter if your child cannot remember what the words say. The primary purpose of the activity is to extend the child’s matching ability.

How to Assess

Materials: A home-made lotto board with 4 clearly written words. The words should look very unlike each other in size and shape – for example elephant, ball, monkey, go – as it is the whole shape of the printed word which the child looks for.

Method: As for FM.J.117, using words.

Score plus if your child matches all 4 words correctly.

How to Teach

You can teach this in just the same way as you have taught the previous lotto matching skill.

Your child may be more interested if you use words that mean something to him. Even though your purpose is not to teach your child to read the words, you can choose words which will be useful to him if he does learn to read them. You could begin with his name.

When your child has learned to match one set of words, repeat the activity with a new set. To have mastered this task, your child should be able to match any set of 4, distinctly different words.

Playtime and Round-the-house Activities

Sets of matching words are not easy to come by round-the-house, so this skill is hard to practise outside the time set aside for it. But this is a good time to begin drawing your child’s attention to words and their function. You can begin pointing out key words as you read favourite stories, showing him the names on packages when shopping, reading the signs you encounter on the street and, most important of all, showing your child his name on his possessions and artwork.

REMEMBERING AND EXTENDING THIS SEQUENCE

If your child has mastered word-matching and enjoyed it, you might well feel interested in going on to ‘real’ reading.

At Macquarie, children are started on reading programs if they have scored plus on FM.J.118 and there are no more pressing priorities.

Although it is highly desirable for children with disabilities to learn to read, if a child has a marked delay in a certain area, time is devoted to strengthening that weakness before reading is begun. It is not that such weaknesses would necessarily prevent your child from learning to read – otherwise, how would severely physically disabled people ever learn? It is simply a matter of priorities, of delaying a new program until good progress is being made in all areas of a child’s existing program.

Having made these reservations, we believe it is worth pointing out that all the children with Down’s Syndrome who have passed through the Macquarie Program have learned to read, to varying degrees. We have found that reading is relatively easy for these children to learn, provided that it is taught carefully and is continually related to things the children know and understand. Many of the children who have gone on to normal schools have remained in the top reading groups in their classes throughout their early years at school – a great source of satisfaction and pride for them and their parents. These children have also found in reading a valuable source of leisure-time enjoyment which will stay with them throughout their lives.

The reading program developed at Macquarie uses the ‘sight word’ approach. Children learn to read whole words, and then words combined into phrases and sentences. Phonics (or ‘sounding out’) is introduced only after the children have learned 50-80 sight words and have a good understanding of what reading is all about. In the early stages of reading, each child has his own, individually selected vocabulary, drawn from the names of people and objects important to the child, and actions which he uses himself. Reading is seen as part of the child’s overall language development – both receptive and expressive.