A parent has asked if the workbook Reeding Readiness is suitable

A parent has asked if the workbook Reeding Readiness is suitable
for a language delayed child.

Hana's answer

Reading Readiness is a handy workbook to introduce your child to the phonic system, needed for language development and
beginning reading. Often a child's language improves with beginning reading due to the letter/picture/sound and letter/sound/word/picture relationships.
Often the child's auditory perception (listening skill) is not fully developed. It helps to connect auditory perception and visual perception (letters, pictures)
with the kinaesthetic/tactual perception (feeling the lips, tongue and mouth while saying the sound or word, naming the picture). This complex perceptual
experience will gradually develop the speech and kick off the reading.

For reading we need both, auditory and visual skills. This book develops both skills simultaneously.
When working with your child, name the picture (read the word)and say the word clearly, encourage the child to watch your mouth (auditory/visual) and stress the beginning sounds (letters).

Example:
pot - press your lips firmly together and say the p with a strong puff. P is a plosive (it explodes). Say the word in one breath pot, don't say p-ot, but pot. Then say, pot starts with p and repeat pot. Make sure the child copies you!
As the child connects the picture and the word with the matching picture and the initial sound (letter) the child holds the images in his memory. The images make a connection in the brain. Later when the child sees the picture, he recalls the words, the sound and vice versa, the word recalls the beginning sound and the picture. A strong connection between the sounds and the letters, the words and the pictures will initiate the onset of reading and improve speech and language.
There is another important developmental step that is fundamental to all learning!
It is the ability to look and see, listen and hear and plan (imagine) what to say or do.

Everything we do we do in steps.
• First we get to know what we have to do
• Then we think how we will do it... (we think in steps)
• Next we decide what we have to do first, second etc
• Then we execute the action step by step

Some children cannot think in steps. They have a go without thinking it through, they do the activity in random steps.
There are reasons for not being able to think and do things in order. Children, who experience developmental delay in
language and find learning difficult, have to learn to do things in steps. Reading Readiness workbook which you asked
for (as well as all of our other books) work with the child step by step, involving all perceptual channels to activate the
brain to learn to work in steps.

I suggest to use puzzles for activating the brain to learn to work in order, step by step. This is how it works:

• Look at the puzzle. Analyse the puzzle. What is in the picture? What is the focus point (colour, main picture, part of a picture, shape etc)?
• Decide where to start: at the corners, top or bottom edges or build up a picture...
• Look for the pieces needed to follow the plan.

The child has to think "What do I need?"and then look for the particular piece.
The strategies will teach the child to think, look and do instead of grab a piece and try
to fit it somewhere, put it down again and try another one without any planning.
All children with language delays have improved dramatically following these strategies.
If you have any questions, or are interested in a more specific guidance for your child, please,
ask for more specific directions. Send a direct email using jesp@ozemail.com.au.

P. S.
The above strategies are an extract from "101 Strategies to Overcome Learning Difficulties"
by Hana Jay