Showing posts with label Brillkids. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brillkids. Show all posts

Thursday, August 30, 2012

How We Have Used Flashcards With Adeline

I have had many questions recently about how we are use flashcards with Adeline and how she is learning to read.  I thought I would write this post to share with everyone.


When Adeline was a newborn I found many black and white cards on line that I printed up for her.  I taped them to the walls and she would look at them while she layed on the floor.  Here is a link for a really neat baby mobile in black and white.

Around 7 months we switched to a pack of Baby Bumble Bee cards.  These cards are very sturdy and withstand a lot of bending and chewing.  I would show Adeline about 10 cards in a sitting.  I would move through the cards telling her the names of each item.  We would do this twice a day.  Each week we would add more cards.  Within a month we were able to hold up two cards and ask Adeline "where is the baby?" and she would grab the baby.

Once Adeline knew her pack of the Baby Bumble Bee cards I moved on to the See and Learn Program.  I only did the first set of the program.  These cards were helpful and gave Adeline even more receptive language.  She learned how to match using this program.  Once the child has learned the pictures there is a matching board where they match just two pictures together, later it moves up to four.

I did not go any further with this program, though I think it is a great program.  We were given a set of the Your Baby Can Read and we started working with this program.  I was surprised at how much Adeline loved this program and how fast she learned the words.  I am on a forum called Unlimited Potential and meet a mom who is using the Brillkids program.  After hearing about how successful her daughter was doing with this program I wanted to give it a try.  We signed up for the Brillkids forum and free trial.  Adeline loved it!  After being on the forum for about a month we applied for the scholarship that they have available for children with special needs.  You can read more about this here at Down Syndrome Up Up And Away.

This program has been one of the most important tools we have used with Adeline.  She is learning how to talk and read at the same time.  Children with Down syndrome and many other challenges are usually visual learners.  This program has given Adeline the visuals need to learn so much vocabulary.  Because of the repetition she is learning the pictures and the words.  She also has books that go with the program.  These books use the words she is learning in the program.

The Brillkids program is done on your computer or I Pad.  There is also an option to print the cards.  I print them so that I can review them later and Adeline just loves to look at her cards.  Throughout the day we play games and do activities to build on the things Adeline has learned.  We play colors and numbers games  to encourage her to transfer the information she has learned to "real life".




Honestly I had never really used flashcards with any of my other children.  I wasn't until researching how children with Down syndrome learn visually I knew I was ready to give it a try.  We have had very little speech therapy because of our insurance but I believe because of these programs Adeline's speech is developing and growing.

If you are interested in checking out the Brillkids program there is a link on my right side bar. 

Friday, August 24, 2012

Adeline Read Her First Book!

I am so excited today!  We have been using the Brillkids program with Adeline for about 8 months.  It is an amazing early reading program for children.  What I love is that Adeline is learning to read and talk at the same time.  She is also developing vocabulary.  There are some books that come with the program and I have been reading part of the book and letting Adeline read some words that I know she knows.  Well today she read to me the whole book.

It is a repetitive predictable book that works great for early reading and speech.  Here are some of the pages.








  

Friday, March 16, 2012

Action Dogs!!

Children with down syndrome are visual learners and if given good visuals can learn just about anything.  This is also true for young typical children, they are also very visual and learn well with visuals.  I have very high expectations for Adeline and I think that it is important, not just a child with special needs but any of our children.  Until I know differently I am going to help them FLY like crazy.

I have been using the Brillkids Little Reader program for Adeline for quit awhile.  This is a visual reading and vocabulary program.  This program has been the best speech therapy we have ever had.  Adeline has learned hundreds of words through this program and been taught what they mean at the same time.  She is also reading these words.  If you have a child with special needs and are interested in this program please check out this link at Up, Up, and Away with Down Syndrome this mother writes about how Brillkids offers a special needs scholarship to purchase the program.

Well, we have been working on actions words and I found this book on one of my favorite speech blogs Chapel Hill Snippets.  She made the matching pictures a little different.  She used pictures from PECS, since we are not using this program I just found some pictures in google images to match the dog.


We laid all of our pictures out and as we read the book we found the matching girl.

The cover of the book
 The first page without the match.





 These are some of our action word flashcards from the Brillkids  program.


Sunday, February 5, 2012

We Play Babies A Lot!

Some of the words Adeline is working on right now with her Brillkids program are action words. We have been working on words such as dance, sit, drink, eat, walk, jump, etc. While Adeline is reading these words she doesn't use them to often in her everyday communication, so we play babies. We talk about "baby eat", "baby drink", "baby dance" while we act these things out. Adeline really love to play babies so she always has a lot of fun with this.

Baby sit       


Baby eat


Oh, Adeline eats cookie

Pat baby

Nigh night, baby

 What are some of the fun things you are doing to help your child communicate?

Saturday, January 21, 2012

I See Book

I have been using the Little Reader Brillkids program with Adeline for about 8 months now.  This program has taught Adeline hundreds of words.  Many of these she can say and all of them she can read by sight.  I wanted to start creating phrases using some of the words she know and Adeline's speech therapist recommended to start with "I see", "I touch", "I hear".  So this week I created an "I See" book.







     

Friday, December 9, 2011

BrillKids and Early Learning

I have been wanting to write about how we are teaching Adeline to read and learn vocabulary at the same time.  For about six months we have been using an early reading program from Brillkids.  When Adeline was born and we learned that she had down syndrome I quickly started my research and read about a man named Glen Doman.  He has worked with many typical children and children with a diagnosis to help them reach their fullest potential.  That is what I wanted, I knew that Adeline could do so much and I was not going to settle for the norm so I read what Glen Doman taught about teach our children.

One of Doman's methods for teaching reading is using the flash method, and showing sets of words to your child quickly about two to four times a day.  Now this is a great method and it does work but I also home school three other children and did not always have the time to create these cards.  Adeline also needed a picture to go with the word, so then I found the Brillkids program.  This program saved me and has taught Adeline more than I could have in the time we have.  Adeline watches a set of words and pictures on the computer twice and day and I also print up her flashcards from the program.  We then do the cards when we have time.   Adeline amazes many by all the words and concepts she knows.  This program has been a great blessing to us.

They do offer a free 14 day trial  I encourage you to try it out.  The button to their web site is on my side bar.

Well one of the set of words we are working on is fruits and the other day I was doing a Montessori word card search and came across this at 1+1+1=1
This was perfect.  Adeline loves matching games and this will give another chance to work with those words.   



Here are a couple pictures of the Brillkids fruit cards that Adeline is working on.




Here Adeline is working on her matching that I printed up from 1+1+1=1


Saturday, October 8, 2011

Our Favorite Flashcards

     When Adeline was a baby we started with the Baby Bumblebee Flashcards.  I liked these because the words and the pictures were on the same side of the card and on the back it showed how to sign the word.  These cards are also nice and thick and this was good because Adeline chewed on them and tried to bend them.  The picture is also very clear on these cards.

                                                                          


    Now that Adeline is older (2)  we are working on reading along with vocabulary development.  I have switched to the Brillkids program.   This program allows me to print any flashcards I need.  They also have put their cards in categories such as action words, common animals, parts of the body, etc.  Their pictures are clear and the words are large.   Adeline has learned many words and facts from this program.     











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