Read Baby, Read!

One of the first things I learned about when Lucas was born was the concept of literacy. OK, maybe that's a bit understated, Lucas and I started our sight words before his first birthday! The theory is that a child learns the spoken language through his sense of hearing, but if you combine the spoken word with the visual (and even tactile as I would put huge felt letters together for Lucas to feel!) You not only are teaching concepts, but you are literally exercising a part of the brain that will be critical for learning and memory later on.

I've read many criticisms of this sight word method saying that the children are not actually reading, rather memorizing the word. I can't help but think the latter is actually a higher skill. Do we phonetically sound out each word we read? We can recognize what a word says simply by the shape of the word, indeed even if some letters are missing we still can understand what it says.

My goal was never to turn Lucas into a baby genius. I had a good understanding of the learning difficulties commonly seen later in life of people with T21, along with the new theories that the basis of the difficulty lies in short term memory. I looked at our reading programs as way more than teaching words per se, we were actually building pathways and connections in the brain that would support learning later.

What I didn't expect was at a very young age, Lucas would choose his books over any other toy. He would orient the book the correct way, run his finger over the text, left to right, and would actually point and focus on a word he recognized. We progressed with our program and today we are putting the words he knows into sentences, making little books as we go.

I am also amazed at his ability to learn - and remember. I mentioned in a previous blog that he had taught himself the map of the US.  This started one day with Lucas finding the map and turning it on. I heard him methodically press the same state four or five times and then move on to the next one. He did this relentlessly for a week, and I began writing down all the states I heard him pressing. At the end of the week, when Lucas took out the map, I sat down with him and asked him to press a state I had written down. He got all 15 correct. Today he knows all the states.

Lucas and I would turn learning time into fun time, we did this with colors, shapes, numbers, letters, and many other things. Now we are learning the presidents (he's up to 11!).  Learning time wasn't a chore, it was fun, and watching my small child accomplish things I sat and wondered on the day of his birth if he would ever do, is empowering.

We can accept that our children are destined to have difficulties learning or we can question why, take advantage of modern theories of learning and brain development and use the information to help our children continue to learn and achieve. It starts with our expectations as parents. If we expect our children are going to be intelligent and educated, then we will provide opportunities for them to learn. The journey begins with honestly believing our children can achieve.