imagine a child's capacity
Creative Skill Builders
Why Children Might Not Excel in Reading
There are many reasons why a child with special needs – or even a child without a delay or diagnosis – might struggle with reading, spelling and comprehension. Among them are a child’s perceptual skills, his or her ability to recognize forms on a page, the ability to stabilize one’s vision in order to see a blackboard clearly, the ability to hold attention, the ability to recognize and recall sounds or to take a visual symbol and attach it to an auditory sound, etc.
Rote memorization may mask an inability to read/comprehend, but that will only last for so long. If a child’s sensory, developmental, cognitive or visual system does not support reading and comprehension mechanics, it will inevitably become evident when the child is older and already has lower self-confidence/self-esteem regarding this vital life skill.
Program Overview
ICC’s Creative Skill Builders Program utilizes a multi-faceted approach to help a child develop the foundational developmental, mechanical and cognitive skills necessary for attention, reading, spelling and comprehension.
We will start by evaluating a child’s perceptual skills, ability to recognize forms on a page, to stabilize vision, to hold attention and focus, to recognize and recall sounds and symbols and to interact in a way that promotes communication and cognitive skill building. From what we learn through the assessment, we will develop an individualized program based on parent goals and each child’s strengths/specific challenge area (visual/motor, speech, education).
Specifics
Lessons are offered in a one-to-one setting, and we will develop an individualized plan for each child based on his or her personal strengths and challenges. These lessons are rooted in a relationship-based approach that believes that the stronger the bond between the instructors and a child, the more interested the child will be in their own learning.
In order to create this bond, we strive to be creative in generating activities, games, pretend play, and opportunities that appeal to the individual child's interests. Each lesson lasts 50 minutes and parents are always welcome to attend their child’s sessions to learn what we are doing in order to build on what we do at the clinic, in the home setting.
Program Components:
Note: Each child’s program will differ based on individual skills and challenges. Each program will include some or all of these components in different sequencing or amounts.
- Visual/Motor:
- Clinical studies have shown that difficulties with visual motor coordination have a significant effect on an individual’s ability to learn. Occupational therapists at Imagine a Child's Capacity offer a program for children with visual motor difficulties while providing parents and teachers tools to support this area of development. In most situations, visual motor programming can be added before and/or during tasks that are visually complex (such as reading or handwriting). A visit with a developmental optometrist may also be recommended.
- Occupational therapists target the following areas through Visual Motor Therapy:
- Vestibular/Proprioceptive Processing
- Body Awareness
- Coordination
- Laterality
- Hand-Eye Coordination
- Fine and Gross Motor Skills
- Visual Motor/Visual Perceptual Skills
- Environmental Adaptations
- Decoding:
- If your child struggles with reading words off the page, they may have a weakness in phonemic awareness.
- The Decoding Program presents a multi-sensory approach to reading that focuses on an awareness of mouth movements in the production of phonemes (individual sounds). In addition to seeing the letter symbols and hearing the sounds associated with them, the child also becomes aware of feeling how to make the sounds with their mouth. Involving these three senses gives the child an additional tool, beyond what is taught in traditional reading programs, to verify sounds and self-correct in reading, spelling and speech. The process of self-discovery is achieved by the instructor guiding the child toward uncovering information on their own, which gives the child the power to determine if they are correct. This ability to self-correct flourishes into increased success and confidence in a child’s reading.
- Symbol Imagery:
- If your child struggles with spelling or reading fluency, they may have a weakness in symbol imagery.
- We present activities to practice visualizing the letter symbols and manipulating their order within words. The premise is that if a child is able to imagine the letters in their head, they are able to analyze and compare possible spellings, and therefore self-correct. By increasing a child’s visual memory of the letters and letter patterns, the child’s reading fluency will also strengthen.
- Comprehension:
- If your child struggles with the meaning of a written passage or information told to them, they may have a weakness in concept imagery.
- We will practice visualizing content and teaching the child how to express what they visualize. The principle is that if you can picture it (imagine it), you can comprehend it. This sequence of thinking in pictures begins with the individual describing a concrete picture or illustration and gaining familiarity with a template of structure words (ex: color, shape, size, movement, background). These structure words are a guideline used to describe a picture or a movie in their head. The child applies this process to visualizing nouns, a single sentence, paragraphs, and chapters. Expressing what they had imagined allows the child to share his or her understanding of the content, and the ability to recall and manipulate those visualizations aids in applying critical thinking skills.
If you are interested in getting your child involved in the ICC Creative Skill Builders, please contact Karl Pierick, Intake Coordinator, 608.204.6247, kpierick@icc-wi.org