Using See and Learn Sentences 1

See and Learn Sentences 1 is designed to teach children to progress from using two keyword phrases to using simple sentences when they talk. To do so, it introduces new vocabulary, simple sentence structures and early grammar in themed reading books. Alongside the books, we use a series of matching, selecting, naming and sentence building activities to teach and reinforce the new vocabulary, sight words and grammar rules.

When to start

See and Learn Sentences 1 is designed for children who:

• understand at least 150 words, including some nouns, verbs and adjectives
• say or sign at least 60 of the words that they understand
• use some two keyword phrases when talking (or signing)

Children who have completed the activities in See and Learn Vocabulary 3 and in See and Learn Phrases 3 should be ready to start the activities in See and Learn Sentences 1.

Children who have not previously completed steps in the See and Learn programme may be ready to start See and Learn Sentences 1, depending on their learned vocabulary, sight words and ability to combine words in simple phrases. Please refer to our web site for guidance and tools for assessing children's vocabulary and reading skills.

Activities

See and Learn Sentences 1 includes 10 teaching activities to teach and test the vocabulary and grammar presented in 25 reading books. The reading books are ordered, with later books building on the vocabulary and grammar presented in earlier books. The books should therefore be taught in sequence. Children should work through the teaching activities with the vocabulary, sight words and grammar rules from one reading book at a time.

The first activity is to read the book together. As you read the book, you can encourage your child to look at how the words and sentences they hear are linked to what they can see in the pictures and to the printed words. Through reading the books, children can learn that spoken and written words convey meaning and that words can be combined to communicate different ideas.

In See and Learn Sentences 1, we use reading books to introduce new vocabulary as well as new sight words and sentence structures. New vocabulary is introduced in themed books -- for example "Outside", "At home" and "Look at the animals". Grammar rules are introduced in books with repeated examples of specific rules -- for example, "Girls and boys" (plural -s ending and is/are) and "Look at the girl and the boy" (personal pronouns he/she).

Having introduced new vocabulary or grammar in a reading book, we work through a series of activities to continue to teach and reinforce the new vocabulary, sight words and grammar.

Your child may not need to work through every activity with the words and sentences in every book. The activities that they should work through for each book will depend on what the book is teaching and what they already know.

After the Reading Books activity, the 9 remaining activities can be organised into three groups:

1. Teaching vocabulary -- Matching Pictures, Selecting Pictures, Naming Pictures
2. Teaching sight words -- Matching Sight Words, Selecting Sight Words, Reading Sight Words
3. Testing understanding -- Understanding Sight Words, Understanding Sentences, Building Sentences

Some of the reading books introduce new vocabulary. When working on these books, your child should generally work through the vocabulary teaching activities to rehearse and consolidate their understanding of any new words. Some children may pick up the meanings of new words quite quickly, perhaps just by reading the books. If this is the case, it is fine to skip the Matching Pictures activity and confirm their understanding of the word with the Selecting Pictures activity.

We introduce new grammar rules with vocabulary and sight words that your child has previously learned. When they are already familiar with the vocabulary and/or the sight words in a book, it is not necessary to repeat the matching, selecting and naming activities for those words

There are three activities that test understanding of sight words, whole sentences, grammar rules and word order. Your child should generally complete these three activities for the contents of each book. When the vocabulary and sight words are familiar, your child may complete Understanding Sight Words quite quickly, but this still offers an opportunity for practice and to confirm they understand the meanings of the words.

Reading books together

When you are reading the books with your child you should try to engage them in the reading process, and make it as interactive as possible. To do this, you can:

• Point at pictures -- Point to the pictures as you talk about them.
• Point at words -- Encourage your child to follow along as you read by pointing to each word as you say it. Encourage your child to point with you.
• Ask what/where questions -- Ask your child to tell you what they see (or to describe what is happening) in the picture before reading the sentences on the page. You can begin by asking what/where questions -- for example, "What is that?", "Where is the girl?".
• Prompt and praise success -- When your child responds to a question, repeat their response. Praise them if they are correct. If they are not correct, simply say the correct response.
• Expand responses -- If your child responds with one or two words, help them learn to make complete sentences by modelling -- for example, if they say "spider" you can respond "Yes! 'Look at the spider.'"
• Make it personal -- Talk to your child about how the book links with things in their personal life. For example, after reading the "At breakfast" book, you might say "We eat cereal for breakfast too", or ask "What do you like to eat for breakfast?"
• Link words and ideas -- Help your child to group ideas and vocabulary. For example, "What other animals can you tell me about?", "Is the mouse big or small?"
• Ask your child to complete a sentence -- for example, you can read "This is a" and your child has to say "spider".
• Ask your child to read just the word you want to emphasise -- for example, when teaching personal pronouns in the "Look at the girl and the boy" book, you might read "Look at the boy" and prompt your child to say "He" before finishing reading "is running".
• Take turns with your child to read alternate pages in the book.
• Review comprehension with questions about the whole book -- After reading the book, ask your child questions about it. You can encourage them to look back at the book to find the answers. For example, after reading the "At breakfast" book, you might ask "What foods were the girls eating?"
• Encourage independent communication -- As they become more familiar with a book, you can encourage your child to talk about the pictures and the book with fewer prompts.

Do not try to use all these techniques at once! We suggest reading the book twice at the start of a teaching session. The first time, you might focus on reading the book, pointing at the words and steadily working through the book with few interruptions. The second time, you might stop and ask questions or prompt your child to read some words. Vary the techniques you use to match your child's interests and your child's ability -- as they become more familiar with the book, give them more opportunities to read some or all of the words for themselves.

Additional guidance for each book

Additional guidance for each book, including the teaching goals, and suggested extension activities are listed on the back of each printed book and available in the apps.

To access the guidance in the apps, tap on the "i" symbol on the cover of the book on the reading book selection screen.

Teaching vocabulary

Teaching new vocabulary in themes offers opportunities to link and group words and ideas in ways that can improve learning and retention. As we describe above, there are lots of opportunities to teach new words as you encounter them when reading books. You can also continue to use these principles when working on other activities and in everyday play and conversation:

• Make it meaningful and motivating -- Link new words to personal experiences and existing knowledge. For example, when learning new words for animals, you might ask your child what animals they like. You can also help them group new words with words they already know. For example, when learning tiger and elephant you might ask your child what other animals they can think of (dog and cat, perhaps).
• Help your child to generalize their understanding -- When new vocabulary is presented in the reading books, we use different pictures from those used on the picture cards used in the matching, selecting and naming activities. You can further help your child generalise their understanding of new words by pointing out other examples -- perhaps on TV or finding other pictures on the Internet.
• Say the word as often as possible -- When working through the matching, selecting and naming activities, try to repeat new words as often as possible when working with the pictures and when working with the sight words. For example, "Put elephant with elephant. Yes, well done! Elephant. That is an elephant."
• Encourage your child to say the word as often as possible -- Our aim is to not only help the children to understand more words, but to use more words when they communicate. Encourage your child to say (or just attempt to say) new words as often as you can. When working on a matching activity, you might ask them to say the word before matching the picture or sight word. You can prompt them and ask them to say after you. If your child is finding it difficult to say a word clearly, praise any attempt and repeat the word clearly for them.

Teaching grammar

The reading books illustrate grammar rules with similar examples of one or two rules in a single book. For example, the "Look at the girl and the boy" book teaches the personal pronouns "he" and "she" with a series of sentences linking "boy" with "he" and "girl" with "she". When teaching grammar, follow these guidelines:

• Learn to read the book first -- Work on learning the book first. The books introducing new grammar rules generally use vocabulary and sight words that have previously been taught, so your child should find it relatively easy to read these books.
• Point to the connections between pronouns and nouns -- For example, you could read "Look at the girl. She is running." and then say "girl -- she -- she is running". You could then contrast it with the facing page -- "Look at the boy. He is running... boy -- he -- he is running."
• Point to the quantity of things to teach plurals -- For example, you could say "a girl -- many girls" or (if your child understands number words) "one boy -- two boys."
• Emphasize the auxiliaries "is", "are" are linked to quantity -- "The cow is eating grass. The cows are eating grass. The cow is... The cows are..." Point to the words on the page, pausing on "is" and "are". Do not try to explain the link, but rather model and emphasize it to draw your child's attention to it. Over time, they will learn the patterns through repetition.
• Do not try to explain articles -- The articles "the", "a" and "an" should be taught as sight words and you should encourage your child to read them correctly and not skip over them. However, do not try to explain the rules for when they are used. Over time, your child should learn the patterns through repetition.

Working through the activities

We recommend that children work through the teaching activities with the vocabulary, sight words and grammar rules from one reading book at a time. However, you will not always need to complete every activity for every word in every book. This will depend on:

1. what the teaching goals are for that book
2. what new vocabulary is introduced in the book
3. the new sight words introduced in the book
4. the grammar rules illustrated in the book
5. how quickly your child is learning new vocabulary and sight words

Different books focus on different things. Indeed, we deliberately avoid introducing new vocabulary at the same time as introducing a new grammar rule or sentence structure.

The record forms set out what activities may be needed for each book. Some children will benefit from working through all the activities for all the new vocabulary and sight words. Other children may be learning new vocabulary and sight words from reading the book alone and therefore will not gain from practising matching activities.

The speed with which different children learn new words will vary depending on the vocabulary and their interests, so you should always be trying to match the activities to your child's own rates of progress. Our recommendations are:

• When a book introduces new vocabulary, you should usually work through the matching, selecting and naming pictures activities with the pictures for the new words. The pictures on the cards are different from those in the books to encourage generalisation. Working through these activities gives you additional opportunities to repeat the spoken words, encourage your child to repeat the spoken words, to talk about themes and groups and links between words and to relate them to your child's personal life and interests. If your child quickly demonstrates that they have learned the new vocabulary (by being able to select the correct pictures in the selecting activity), then that it is fine to move on without many repetitions of the activities.
• When a book does not introduce new vocabulary, you do not need to work through the matching, selecting and naming pictures activities. That said, you could choose to do so for some additional practice, consolidation or to confirm that your child remembers the vocabulary.
• When a book introduces new sight words, you should usually work through the matching, selecting and naming sight words activities with the new words. Working through these activities gives your child opportunities to read the words, and for you to talk about themes and links between words and to relate them to your child's personal life and interests. If your child quickly demonstrates that they have learned the new sight words (by being able to select the correct words in the selecting activity), then that it is fine to move on without many repetitions of the activities.
• When a book does not introduce new sight words, you do not need to work through the matching, selecting and reading sight words activities. That said, you could choose to do so for some additional rehearsal, consolidation or to confirm that your child remembers the sight words they have previously learned.
• Always confirm that your child understands the sight words in each book. The Understanding Sight Words activity allows your child to show that they understand the meaning of sight words (that can be pictured) by linking the word to the picture.
• Always confirm that your child understands the sentences in each book. The Understanding Sentences activity asks your child to match sentences to the correct picture and to show they understand the sentence.
• Always complete some sentence building activities. The Building Sentences activity offers opportunities to focus on word order and grammatical patterns, as well as additional sight word reading practice.

Promoting success

During each teaching session it is important that your child experiences success. The activity instructions often ask you to prompt your child. This means you should give your child time to try the activity but then assist or guide them as much as necessary to ensure they complete it successfully. Offer less help as your child becomes more able to complete the activities independently.

Where possible, take turns with your child to provide a model of how to do the activity. For example, you could match one word then ask your child to match the next word. Taking turns can also take some of the pressure off your child and make the activity more enjoyable.

Language and memory demands

We recommend using simple language to give instructions throughout the teaching activities. This will make it easier for the children to learn the words and sentences, and to understand what they are being shown.

We provide recommended spoken prompts, instructions and questions in the guidance for each activity, which we encourage you to use. These are designed to reduce working memory and language demands.

Responding to individual needs

The activities in See and Learn Sentences 1 give your child the opportunity to learn to read independently. Some children will learn to read sight words quickly; others will make slower progress. However, the activities should also teach your child to understand and say these sentences even if they are not yet reading, and so support their language development.

If your child takes more time to develop their sight word reading skills, they will still benefit from reading in a 'supported' way by being read to and encouraged to imitate the words and sentences. In this situation, focus on reading and enjoying the books together and point to the words as you read them. Continue to go through the matching, selecting and naming activities with prompts to help your child learn.

If your child is not becoming an independent reader, you can still check their understanding of the sentences and grammar when listening to spoken language by reading the sentences to them and asking them to point to the correct picture.

Encouraging speech

As children start to put words together when they talk, they are not able to say sentences as clearly as an adult might. It takes all children some time to develop clear speech. When your child begins to use sentences, we recommend that you do not attempt to correct their pronunciation while they are talking to you. You should listen carefully to their attempts and respond to them by repeating the sentences and confirming that you have understood your child. We want to encourage children to use words and sentences to communicate.

We recommend that you work on activities to promote clearer speech separately from activities to teach language and reading. The See and Learn Speech programme offers structured activities designed to promote clearer speech and can be used alongside the See and Learn Language and Reading programme.

Using signs

Many children with Down syndrome can sign words before they can say them. When learning to read they may show that they can read the word by signing it rather than saying it. Their signs should be accepted as showing they are learning to correctly read words, but you should also encourage your child to attempt to say the words.

Research studies suggest that using signs helps many children up to 4 or 5 years of age. At around this age, most then begin to learn new words in their spoken form and transfer from signing to talking. However, for children with more severe speech production difficulties and/or hearing loss signs may continue to be important.

Some children will use two and three signs together to express two- and three-keyword sentences. If your child does this, encourage them as they are expressing more complex information. At the same time, keep saying the spoken words for these sentences to encourage them to say more words for themselves. By the time they are ready to learn more about longer sentences and grammar most children will be talking.

Additional reading instruction

See and Learn Sentences 1 is designed to teach new vocabulary, sentence structures and grammar rules. We use whole word reading to help make language visual. In addition, children should be engaged in regular literacy activities at home and at preschool or school.

To become fully competent readers, children need to learn to decode unfamiliar words. In addition to learning to read words by sight, children should be taught about letter-sounds, phonological awareness (hearing sounds in words) and the application of these to reading and spelling (phonics). Many children with Down syndrome may still be only starting to learn to read at an age when phonics instruction is introduced in schools.

We recommend that children with Down syndrome learn a core sight word vocabulary of around 50 words before being introduced to phonics. By this stage, the children should be able to read and understand whole words and simple phrases. Sometimes, children with Down syndrome who are taught to sound out the letters in words before learning to read whole words can get 'stuck' thinking that reading words is about sounding out the individual letters -- rather than reading the whole word.

The Reading and Language Intervention for Children with Down Syndrome (RLI)

RLI is an evidence-based programme designed to teach reading and language skills to children with Down syndrome in structured intervention sessions delivered at school. RLI combines training in letter-sound knowledge, phoneme awareness and phonics, and sight word learning, in the context of book reading and includes explicit language teaching. RLI was evaluated in a randomized controlled trial and found to improve rates of progress compared to ordinary teaching.

There are obvious parallels between the teaching strategies incorporated into RLI and in See and Learn Sentences 1.

RLI targets foundational reading skills and is suitable for beginning readers (those with little or no reading ability) through to those with word reading ages up to 8 years. Where RLI is being used to support children with limited sight word reading skills and limited language skills, See and Learn Sentences 1 can be used within the context of RLI to cover elements of the reading strand and elements of the language strand.

We have graded the books in See and Learn Sentences 1 using the Hatcher grading scheme used in RLI as follows:

Book Hatcher level

---

Outside 2 How do you feel? 2 The body 2 What do you like? 2 Look at the animals 3 At home 3 Here is 3 Girls and boys 3 What are you doing? 4 What do you like doing? 4 Where are they? 4 I like eating and drinking 4 What is different 5 At breakfast 5 What are they doing? 5 What are the animals doing? 6 The animals are eating and drinking 5 Look at the girl and the boy 6 Look at the lady and the man 6 Look at the girls and the boys 6 Hello Tom 7 Good night Emma 7 They are eating and drinking 7 At lunch 8 Good morning Emma 8

Teaching session structure

We recommend that you follow a regular routine during your teaching sessions. This routine is designed to build teaching activities around book reading -- rather than engaging in teaching activities is isolation. The routine will help your child to understand what is expected and allow them to focus what is being taught.

We recommend starting with reading the book you are currently teaching. We suggest reading it twice, with the first reading focusing on following the words and pictures and the second reading offering an opportunity to extend your discussions and your child's opportunities to read for themselves.

After reading the book, you can work on the teaching activities needed for any new vocabulary or sight words. For example, if you are teaching new sight words you would work on the Matching Sight Words activity -- at first with just a few of the new words.

We then suggest that you end the teaching session by reading the book again, giving your child opportunities to read along as much as they can and highlighting the new words you have been working on.

As your child progresses, you would move to the selecting and naming/reading activities, then the Understanding Sight Words, Understanding Sentences and Building Sentences activities, while continuing to read the book at the start and the end of the teaching session.

As you move through the reading books, we suggest you include an additional step at the end of each teaching session, where you ask your child to read a book they have previously learned. This offers opportunities for rehearsal and consolidation. When your child has learned multiple books, you might offer them a choice of what to read at the end of the session. This routine will also make it likely that your child ends teaching sessions successfully reading.

Keeping records

We recommend that you keep records of your child's progress using the record forms provided.

The record forms enable you to record your child's progress and will help you to decide when to move on and introduce new activities and books.

Organizing teaching sessions

Location

Find a place to carry out the activities that is comfortable, quiet, well-lit and free from distractions. Ensure that there are not lots of things in easy reach or on view that your child would rather do.

Timing

Choose whatever time that you feel is best for both you and your child, for example, when your child is not too tired, and when you are not likely to be interrupted.

Developing your child's ability to sit still, concentrate and engage effectively in learning activities is an important goal to support their learning at school. Be confident and positive, but set the expectation that when you ask them to achieve a task they will complete it successfully -- even if you do it together with plenty of prompts at first.

Duration

Keep the sessions short so that you can keep your child's interest. You may start with sessions lasting just 5-10 minutes if your child is new to this type of activity. Gradually increase the length of each session, up to 15-20 minutes. Try to always end on a positive note. Avoid carrying on for too long and losing your child's interest.

Frequency

'Little and often' is the best principle to encourage progress. Repetition is essential for your child to make progress. Complete a short activity session as often as you can. Ideally, this will be daily.