Here is one of my latest purchases from Teachers Pay Teachers - Snapwords by Child1st Publications. Although I am a Speech Language Pathologist, I do a little tutoring for one of my speech kids before school. (He has Apraxia of Speech and Dyslexia) I have been at a loss for how to help him. I initially started helping him with his weekly spelling words that contained phonemes that are difficult for him to say. I thought he might be spelling them the way he sounded them out in his head. Was I ever wrong! With a little digging, I figured out he only knew 13 LETTERS consistently. Even though he might be able to say certain blends, or answer me if I asked "What does "t" say?"....written letters were another story. Since so much of speech therapy is done auditorily, I'm embarrassed to admit I didn't know he had this problem. (He wasn't diagnosed with Dyslexia yet - long story short, I met with his parents who told me he has three uncles with Dyslexia. He has since been diagnosed by a private specialist.)
We got the Occupational Therapist involved, and we are so lucky to have the OT's that we do in our system. They really do so much for our children who require multi-sensory instruction. Seriously - respect your school OT's and OTA's! (OTR's & COTA's.....I never know the right abbreviation.) Don't call them "penmanship police" or the "handwriting teacher!" They have reasons for what they do, and they are doing us a favor by telling us what we need to know rather than a long neurologically based explanation for why we need to do it. Trust me - just go with it, or you're going to know more about the corpus callosum than you ever intended! :) The COTA at my school started coming in early and working with me to help my little buddy. She uses the Handwriting Without Tears Program with him along with manipulatives. (Sandpaper letters etc...)
We noticed how animated he is when he talks - he uses his hands a lot! Maybe this is from when his speech was so unintelligible that he had to use gestures? I don't know how I came across Snapwords on Teachers Pay Teachers, but I noticed there are hand motions with each sight word. I was hesitant to spend the money for a little while, but I decided to go for it. I'm so glad I did! This little guy only knew two sight words up until last week. He's in the first grade, and SO smart! He's a whiz at math, and he's so creative. He is the kind of kid who gets excited about learning, so you just want to help! Anyway, we tried Snapwords List A for one week. By Friday, he learned two more sight words! That might not seem like a lot, but he basically doubled what took him a couple of years to learn...in 5 days! Here is the feedback I left on TPT. I don't think I've left feedback quite this long on any other product!
Anyway, I just wanted to share my excitement with you about this product. By combining the hand motions, visual supplements, along with the written words....it seems to work! I know I'm dabbling outside of my scope of practice here. I'm learning as I go, and this little boy has probably taught me more than I've taught him. I might ask his mom if I can share a photo or video on my blog - his excitement for learning is infectious!
Click on the image below to check out Snapwords at Teachers Pay Teachers.
The regular price is $17.95 - I noticed it's on sale today for $16.16.
I cut these out a little smaller than the guidelines, and they fit perfectly in 2.3" x 3.7" laminating pouches by Scotch. (It's probably cheaper to buy larger sheets of laminating film, but it saves a step in cutting when I use the pouches!
If you don't feel like cutting anything at all, Child1st also offers the actual cards:
I am in no way affiliated with Child1st Publications. I just wanted to share a product with you that I found helpful! Enjoy!
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