How To Teach Your Child With Down Syndrome The Alphabet
So, you want to teach your child with Down Syndrome the alphabet. Let me ask you this, have you started teaching your child sight words?
If the answer is no, you need to start with sight words first and THEN teach the alphabet.
Hey Mama Bears, full disclosure here. There are affiliate links in this post so if you click on the link and buy the product I will earn a small commission. Now that we’re clear on that let’s get back to rocking life with special needs!
I know this approach is counterintuitive but Patricia Logan Oelwein, author of the book Teaching Reading to Children with Down Syndrome: A Guide for Parents and Teachers informs us this approach is better for our children with Down Syndrome.
Why You Should Teach Your Child With Down Syndrome Sight Words Before The Alphabet
Children with Down Syndrome have strong visual memories and sight words are words a reader recognizes right away without having to sound the word out. Any word can become a sight word when read enough times.
It makes more sense to start teaching sight words and capitalizing on that strong visual memory rather than teaching the alphabet and letter sounds where a child is relying on “sounding out” words since our kids can struggle with phonological processing.
Also teaching our kids sight words that are highly meaningful to them such as their name, Mom, Dad, or a favorite food is going to be more motivating and interesting than trying to teach them A, B, and C.
After your child learns some sight words and can make the connection that these letters and sounds form words that are relevant to them they’ll be more engaged in learning the alphabet and letter sounds.
How Does My Child With Down Syndrome Learn Best?
Typically, people with Down Syndrome are visual learners. Visual aids are super important when teaching visual learners. Visual aids are visual materials such as flash cards, letter blocks, books, etc.
Repetition and giving your child plenty of time to learn new things is also important. As Dr. David Stein tells us in his book Supporting Positive Behavior in Children and Teens with Down Syndrome the hippocampus and temporal lobe, both of which are very important for learning and retaining new information are quite different in someone born with Down Syndrome.
When a child without DS learns something new their brain processes that info and then “encodes” it by transferring it to long-term memory. Then, the brain “ consolidates” the information permanently storing it in the brain.
In children with Down Syndrome new information is not transferred into long-term memory and stored permanently as easily or consistently.
This is one of the reasons it’s important to remind people that children with Down Syndrome CAN learn, it just takes them a little longer.
People born with DS tend to be music lovers. Incorporating songs and music when teaching your child keeps them engaged and motivated to learn. They also love to be entertained so when teaching them try to be a bit dramatic.
When we were teaching Max letters we talked about big (uppercase) letters and little (lowercase) letters. When I would talk about or point to a big letter I used a big deep voice and when I talked about or pointed to a little letter I used a high pitched squeaky voice. Max loved it!
How To Teach Your Child With Down Syndrome The Alphabet
How To Teach Your Child With Down Syndrome The Alphabet: Introduce Letters Of High Interest First
Don’t start with the usual A, B, and C. Instead, teach high interest letters like the first letter of your child’s name, M for Mom, D for Dad, or the first letter of their favorite food or a pet. Your child will be more invested this way and less likely to lose interest.
How To Teach Your Child With Down Syndrome The Alphabet: Teach Uppercase and Lowercase Letters At The Same Time
Patricia Logan Oelwein recommends teaching the upper and lowercase letters together so our children learn letters come in pairs, big and little, and will not be confused when the upper and lowercase of the same letter looks different.
Remember to keep it really engaging by using a deep voice for the big letters and a high voice for the little letters. Of course if you’re trying to teach an older person with DS this may be a bit patronizing so use your judgment.
How To Teach The Alphabet To Your Child With Down Syndrome: Use Relevant Visual Aids Such As Making An Alphabet Book
An alphabet book is something you can make that serves as a visual aide and is also personalized for your child. You can use a program like Canva or simply create one by hand.
Each page of the alphabet book will have the uppercase as well as the lowercase of the featured letter at the top along with matching alphabet flash cards that you can paperclip to the top of the page. In the middle of the page will be words that your child can read and that begin with the featured letter. When possible you can add a picture of the word next to the word. For example, next to Mom you can include a picture of yourself.
How To Use The Alphabet Book
Sit down with your child and look at the book together. Let’s imagine you’re looking at a page that features the letter “M”. You’ll start out by pointing out the big “M” and you’ll want to say “Big M” using your deep voice, next point to the little M and say “Little M” in your high pitched squeaky voice.
Take the flash cards and hand your child the big M and ask them to put the big M over the big M on the page. When they do give them praise. In the beginning you may have to guide them to place the big M flash card over the big M on the page. Ask them to do the same thing for the little m.
Next, you’ll read the words in your child’s reading vocabulary that begin with this letter. For the “M” that would be Mom, Max, and milk for Max’s personalized alphabet page. The picture next to the word will help prompt your child. You can cover up the pictures with sticky notes to make it extra challenging and after saying the word your child can lift up the sticky note to confirm whether or not they are correct by looking at the picture.
As your child masters the big and little letters of the featured alphabet pages you have created you can create more.
For Max we started out learning the letters M, D, and A. M was meaningful because it was the first letter of his name and the first letter in Mom. He also enjoyed drinking milk. D for Dad and he loved our dog. The letter A because his sister’s name is Anna and he enjoyed eating apples. Once he mastered the upper and lower case for each of these letters we added three more. Keep doing this until you have an alphabet book with pages A-Z.
How To Teach The Alphabet To Your Child With Down Syndrome: Play Alphabet Games
Learning doesn’t have to be boring.
Go on an alphabet scavenger hunt where you choose a letter and then walk around your house looking for things that begin with that letter. You could also do this outside in your yard or on a walk.
An alphabet relay is another fun and inexpensive game to play. Start by writing both the uppercase and lowercase letter on an index card and have several of these index cards on a table or counter.
On a separate table or counter have several objects laid out. Your child goes to the first table, chooses an index card then they run to the table with all of the objects on it and choose the object that begins with that letter. They can then run to you and give you the index card and object before running back to the table to choose another index card.
There are also several alphabet games you can buy if you don’t want to create your own games.
Alphabet Games To Help Your Child with Down Syndrome Learn The Alphabet
I love these flashcards I found on Amazon. These would have been perfect when Max was little and I would’ve bought them in a flash!
Alphabet Go Fish? Yes, please!
I loved matching games when I was a kid.
I also love a good game of BINGO thanks to my gramma who introduced me to the game!
This BINGO game is kind of fun because you use pop-its!
How To Teach The Alphabet To Your Child With Down Syndrome: Read Books About the Alphabet
Max is definitely a visual learner so books were one of our daily go to’s. Remember, his attention span was about 5 minutes which is roughly how much time it took to read some of our favorite books for teaching the alphabet. The timing was perfect. Here is a list of a few of our “go to” books.
Kids Like Me...Learn ABCs by Laura Ronay
I will say this was by far Max’s favorite ABC book in large part because it showed kids with Down Syndrome. Just like him! To be honest, it was my favorite as well. If you have a child with Down Syndrome (or even if you do not) I would highly recommend this book to teach the alphabet.
Dr. Seuss’ ABC by Dr. Seuss
A fun tongue twister for sure! Who doesn’t love Dr. Seuss? Word of advice. Don’t drink a glass of wine before you read this book for bedtime. You’ve been warned.
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault
All the letters are racing up the coconut tree and when they get up there...chicka chicka BOOM BOOM! This is a super simple story and book and for whatever reason my kids loved it.
Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready for Kindergarten
Remember how when you were in junior high and you thought high schoolers were super cool? Well, kindergarteners are the high schoolers of the toddler world! The Mathe crew were fascinated by kindergarten so this super cute book was a perfect way to help them learn the alphabet and get excited for kindergarten!
A is for Apple Trace and Flip Book by Tiger Tales
This book did not come out until 2011 but it was one of our “go to” ABC books for our youngest. I wish it would have been available when Max was learning his alphabet! It’s great for developing those fine motor skills too!
How To Teach The Alphabet To Your Child With Down Syndrome: Play with Alphabet Toys
I always try to buy toys that are going to help my child learn something or work on a skill. Here are a couple of toys that are perfect for learning about the alphabet.
Alphabet Mystery Box
LeapFrog Match and Learn Cookies
Mama Bears I hope you found this post helpful. If you enjoyed this post consider checking out…
6 Brain Differences In Your Child With Down Syndrome And How It Impacts Behavior
7 Common Behavior Issues In Children With Down Syndrome And Tips To Manage Them
15 Best Behavior Hacks For Your Child With Down Syndrome
Let’s rock this special life!
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