This year, we made progress in reading and writing. We are learning the “ock” word family these days —words like rock, sock, and block. These small steps seem easy, but they are big wins for us.

In this post, I will talk about teaching my child with Down syndrome to read and write word families. It’s not always easy, but it’s full of learning, hard work and love.

1. First, I show the letters O-C-K using movable letters. We say the sound together,ock.
2. Then we write the word ock to help it remember.
3. Then I add letters in front to make new words like:
   • s + ock = sock,
   • r + ock = rock
   • l+ ock = lock
   • bl+ ock = block
   • cl+ ock = clock.

When we make a new word, we read it out loud and write it down. This helps my child learn better by seeing the letters, moving them and hearing the sounds. We repeat the words again and again until they feel easy and fun.

1. Movable letters, pictures and drawing make it fun and clear.
2. Kids with Down syndrome are visual learners.
3. Seeing, touching and tracing the letters makes a big difference.
4. Repeating the word family helped my child remember patterns in words.
5. Reading and writing together helped her learn better.
6. Writing letters without guessing makes learning easier and she feels confident.

Before learning the word family, we learned sounds and blends. We learned to say the sounds, listen, repeat, and sometimes just play with sounds and pictures. It was not always easy, but we took our time. We used movable letters, pictures and writing together.

• We learned the sounds of letters. Then we put sounds together to make easy CVC words like cat, sit, and mop. We did this with the help of movable letters. This is called blending.
• We practiced regularly and broke words into small sounds to help with spelling. Like d–o–g in dog.
• We wrote letters while saying their sounds. This helped reading and writing work together.
• We also practiced sight words that are not pronounced as they are like “the” and “said”.
• We used letters that we can touch and move.

All of this helped my child get ready to learn word families like ick (kick, pick), ide (ride, hide), ice (dice, nice), ain (rain, pain) and now, ock (sock, rock, block).

Learning takes time. We go step by step, repeat and celebrate every word we learn.