Anyone experience of teaching a non-verbal child to read?

[messmonster]

My DD is due to start school in September. She has significant delays in all areas of her development due to a chromsosome disorder and is currently non-verbal with some emerging spoken language. She will attend a MS school with full 1:1 support.

She communicates through signing and a communication book (with symbols/pictures) as well as vocalisations, gestures etc.

She has good understanding of language and is able to follow instructions well and point to objects, action pictures etc when asked "show me X, where is Y etc".

She can match 3-4 word labels to pictures at present.

I just wondered, if she can't sound out phonics, could she still learn to read using a phonics-based approach? She "knows" the Jolly Phonics CD off by heart (hums to the tune and does some of the actions) but I think this is pretty meaningless because she's not actually saying the sounds or matching them to the letters.

Would love to hear from anyone who has experience of this. Ideas/opinions on resources/schemes also very welcome. I've heard of Reading Kingdom and Headsprout from parents on the SN board which I will follow up but really interested in a teachers' perspective too.

It's not the same but my ds has a significant speech disorder probably part of HFA (although we are watching and waiting to see where intensive speech therapy gets us over 6 months before formal diagnosis). He has age appropriate understanding of language but is under the 3rd percentile in his expressive language and has the spoken language of a 20 month old. He will be 5 start of march and is in reception class with 15 hours 1-1.
He has already tought himself how to read a fairly large range of words by whole word recognition and can read more then he can say although this is very hard to quantify and document!
I am not sure how phonics could be refined for use with a non verbal pupil but I am no expert, I don't think there is a massive reason why whole word recognition couldn't be used though by teaching her to associate the written word with a picture from her communication board (eg. Picture of an apple with the word Apple written underneath.
There is no reason why a non verbal child can't learn to read. I hate the way people can treat ds like he has no brain because his language is so poor. He is a really bright little boy and I sometimes hate the way people can act so surprised when he solves a number puzzle or types words on a computer. They wouldn't be so surprised and gushing if a child with average speech development did the same thing.
I wish you the best and sorry I can't really help.

Thanks rkb for such an encouraging post. We've started the whole word recognition thing with DD but it's very slow progress. I read something today about Jolly Phonics being used alongside whole word recognition as a way of helping DC to learn/consolidate speech sounds. On the face of it, seems logical to maybe run with both.

I sometimes get frustrated for my DD that her lack of speech stops her being able to show everything she can do so I can only imagine what it's like to have a very bright little boy unable to express himself verbally.

All the best to you too

My DS is deaf and has learned to read through a system called visual phonics. It is a system developed mainly for deaf children who use BSL, but if your child knows the sign alphabet, it could help for them too. It involves matching the letter to the alphabet sign and the mouth shape at the same time so that the child can blend the mouth and throat shapes together to make the word. As I say, it may not be so suitable for a hearing child, but if you can find it (will google in a mo) it may be worth a look to see if you could adapt the idea.

My DS is also very good at whole word recognition - and that is perfectly valid. Although phonics is the big thing at the moment, for some children (verbal or not) whole word recognition is a preferred strategy.

On my phone at the mo but will try to pm you later. Have you looked at See and Learn from the Down Syndrome Association? Puts in matching and selecting before flashcards and gives good results. Not quite what you were asking but may help. As I said, will return later.

My db was fairly non-verbal when dm taught him to read by look say method. He got proficient enough at it that he used to write things down when we couldn't understand him, he was 3yo when he first started doing this. He was verbal, if somewhat incomprehensible to outsiders by school age.

You may need to investigate research based on your child's chromosome disorder if there is any.

For example, it seems that children with Down Syndrome can learn better with a whole word approach initially.

www.downsyndrome.ie/index.php/general-educational-information/235

Working with the 1-to-1 and being open to a variety of approaches till one "sticks" may be best.

Thanks all. There is no support/research for my DDs condition specifically but I have looked at the Down Syndrome Association stuff in the past. I think their resources are pretty amazing and I noticed today they have some brilliant case studies about inclusion in MS which refer to the See and Learn and whole word approaches.

I'm not sure how I find out if learning methods that work for children with Down Syndrome will work for my DD but I guess the best approach would be to try it and see