See and Learn - First Words - Matching

We have started working with Sweet Pea on the Down Syndrome Education Foundation's See and Learn reading program.  (Make sure you go to the US version as they do have a UK version as well)  The first stage is called First Words and here is what their website says about it:

See and Learn First Word Pictures contains four activities to help children learn 60 common first words using pictures. It is designed for children who are at the first stage of learning language.  This step also prepares children for learning to read by developing their visual skills through matching activities. They will use these visual skills later in the See and Learn Language and Reading program.

Activities

See and Learn First Word Pictures consists of four activities:

• Activity 1 - Looking at First Word Pictures
• Activity 2 - Matching First Word Pictures
• Activity 3 - Selecting First Word Pictures
• Activity 4 - Naming First Word Pictures

I did Activity 1 just a few times and she seemed to enjoy it, but it wasn't very exciting and I had no idea how future activities would go.

I quickly moved on to Activity 2 (matching) and we are having HUGE success with it.  It only took a few tries and she started to really get the idea of matching.  Here is a video of her doing a couple of the pictures.  You start with the baseboards that only have two pictures on them and then move on to the ones with four pictures.  I love how she requests more when we finish with a board!
 


We are now starting to work on Activity 3 (selecting).  The first time I tried it she did it correctly with the first 4 about 75% of the time, but the next two times I tried the activity she did not do hardly any of them right.  I think she has a hard time focusing and listening to what I'm asking for so I need to make sure that I'm working with her when she is at her best.  The first time I tried the selecting activity was in the middle of an afternoon.  The next two times were right before bed.  Definitely not the best time to be trying this.  The reason for doing it before bed is that Sweet Pea sees the folder that holds the cards and baseboards and starts pointing to it and requesting to play with them.  How do you say no to a girl that is loving to learn?!?  I guess we will need to do it twice a day and only do the matching in the evening.  One of the key things that this program stresses (as it seems many programs do) is to always make it a success and don't let your child fail so that is why I want to ensure I'm doing it when she is at her best.

Let's hope that Sweet Pea continues to love this program and everything else educational!

Here is another video of Sweet Pea matching.  I love her laughter in the middle of this one!


And one more...Yes, you do hear her let a lovely fart loose!  And I apologize for the shaky camera work...that is what happens when I'm trying to keep Angel quiet and video tape at the same time.