Tag: teaching

Do you ever feel overwhelmed by teaching your child some important skill, such as how to read or how to ride a bike? Does your child struggle to master skills that seem to come so easily to others, such as brushing their teeth or putting on clothes? One simple concept has made a huge impact on how I have been able to help my special needs kids make progress.

Break it down! Take that skill your child needs to learn and think of it not as one skill but as several small, manageable skills. I recognize that this is not a new idea; adults use this method all the time to tackle big jobs, such as organizing a house or planning an event. It seems obvious to do this when the task is clearly complex and multi-step. But what about teaching your child how to eat with a spoon or put on their pants? These tasks seem so simple that we often think of them as just one-step skills. But for a child with disabilities or delays, these skills really require much more than you might initially see.

For example, most kids by the time they are a few years old can climb a small 4 step ladder into a pool. In fact, most kids do not actually have to be taught how to do this. They just figure it out on their own. But not my James. For him, even at 11 years old, it seemed like an insurmountable task. He is not really physically disabled. He can walk up stairs and use his arms just fine. But he struggles with coordination, balance, and many fine and gross motor skills. So when we bought an above-ground pool last summer, it was quite an endeavor teaching him how to get in and out by himself.

In order to teach the skill, I first climbed up and down the ladder by myself and paid attention to each step in the process–where I put my hands, where I put my feet, and the exact order I did each part. Then I took him through each step one by one. It was amazing how quickly that helped. Instead of James focusing on getting off the ladder, he was just focusing on the very next move, such as putting one foot on the first step. Breaking it down made it less overwhelming for him, more doable, and it helped me be able to coach him through it with less frustration.

Try it with almost anything you do in your daily life without thinking. Break it down into tiny skills and you will see the task in a completely different manner. When you pick up a pencil, you must reach out your hand, open your hand, grasp the pen, and pull your hand back to you. If your child does not fully comprehend each one of those steps, they will not be able to master it.

This concept helped me analyze how best to approach teaching James how to read. Most curriculum starts with letter recognition, but I had to dig deeper to think about what steps would come before that. I found a resource called ASD Pre-Speaking. This program helped me realize that some other skills must be tackled first, such as holding information in memory, remembering a sequence from left to right, and comprehending simple oral instructions. ASD Pre-Speaking had four types of activities that addressed these skills. Working through the program helped me recognize more clearly just how difficult certain tasks were to James, such as looking at a card with 3 colors and then pointing to those colors in order. We worked for months on this and he improved but still struggled. So we took a break from this and I re-evaluated how I might need to break things down even further. The result of using this program was not that James learned to read, but it gave me new insight into a whole world of other skills that I must teach him in order to even begin actual reading curriculum.

So if you are hitting a brick wall with teaching your child a particular concept or skill, take a moment to reflect on that skill and then break it down into smaller parts. See the task from your child’s perspective; which parts of it are easy and which are hard. Make smaller, more specific goals. I promise it will relieve some of your stress. You’ll start seeing progress. Your eyes will be opened to the strengths and weaknesses of your child. Ultimately, both you and your child will benefit from the more realistic, appropriate approach to learning that will result from breaking it down!