Kindness

A wise woman who was travelling in the mountains found a precious stone in a stream. The next day she met another traveller who was hungry, and the wise woman opened her bag to share her food. The hungry traveller saw the precious stone and asked the woman to give it to him. She did so without hesitation. The traveller left, rejoicing in his good fortune. He knew the stone was worth enough to give him security for a lifetime. But a few days later he came back to return the stone to the wise woman.

"I've been thinking," he said, "I know how valuable the stone is, but I give it back in the hope that you can give me something even more precious. Give me what you have within you that enabled you to give me the stone."  

“The Wise Woman’s Stone”    

Unknown Author

Yesterday somebody did something very generous and very kind for me and LM, which greatly touched me. This person, whom I have only met online, went out of their way to help me without having been asked and without expecting anything in return.

It is acts like this, pure, selfless acts of kindness, that make me reflect on how lucky I have been so far and how life has always brought me together with people like this person. I wish with all my heart that only beautiful things happen in their lives and that their kindness and generosity return to them tenfold.

If you are reading this post, I., you will know it is about you...

Update on LM's English Reading

First of all, my hello to Marta. Thanks for reading my blog!

Secondly, let me share my exciting news: I think LM is finally getting the hang of reading phonics! Hooray!

I have to say, I was a bit worried about this aspect earlier. She started her reading journey about a year ago or so with Your Baby Can Read, which was kindly donated to us and which was an absolute and immediate hit with her. As the title suggests, this DVD series is generally intended for younger users, so I did not follow the suggested schedule with then 3.5-year-old LM, but simply let her pick any volume she wanted to see.

I was pretty laid back about this venture and did not test her for the first month or two, as, to be quite honest, I did not expect to get quick results. I then made a few cards with some words from the show hoping that seeing them in this format might assist her learning. To my astonishment, she could read all of these words without any problem! I remember laughing at myself for having laminated those cards to prevent “wear and tear”. Silly me!

I also printed a few of Fry noun cards, which can be downloaded from this very helpful site. She grasped those quite quickly too. She also enjoyed Usborne First Hundrend Words in English.

It was at this stage that I started thinking about shifting my focus away from the whole-word approach and start introducing phonics. Learning letters and their sounds was easy and painless. I can’t even remember teaching these specifically as LM somehow “sponged” them in. I am attributing the success to LeapForg’s “Letter Factory” as well as Preschool Prep Company’s “Meet the Letters” DVDs.

Blending sounds together, however, proved to be a problem and we experienced a major stumble when I attempted to introduce the first CVC words from Larry Sanger’s Fleschcards. LM would sound out each letter perfectly well, but then would blend them into some completely different word. I persevered for a week at the end of which LM simply memorised the first set and could read the words, but still only as whole words.

Arguably, some kids “figure out” the phonics once they have seen a good number of whole words, but I was not quite convinced that it was the way for LM to go. Not exactly reaching my goal at that stage with Fleschcards, I decided to put them aside for the time being. In the meantime, I thought I could work to LM’s strengths and teach her some sight-words.

Well, how do you teach sight-words to a speech-delayed child who does not even use them correctly when talking? I saw little point in showing LM cards with words which had no meaning to her and which could not be easily illustrated. What helped was reading books with simple senteces where these words appeared alongside the words she could already read and which had meaning to her.

She was initially very reluctant to look at the sentences in the printed books and would completely lose interest if I started running my finger under the lines. So I prepared a few PPT books for her with herself as a main star. She was very curious to see the picture following the text so she eagerly read every word on the preceding slide. She also demanded to read them again and again, so there was the necessary element of repetition allowing some of the sight-words to “sink”.

We have now moved to Ladybird “Read It Yourself” series, and going through Level 1 books, which I do recommend. Each book of this level starts by introducing keywords, so when the child starts reading the story s/he can easily recognise these words. Many sentences are partially repeated, which helps to gradually build up reading confidence.

A couple of weeks ago we also ran the trial version of BrillKids Little Reader, and this looked a great programme which would probably work very well with LM. She loved the animated presentations and still keeps asking for more although our trial period is now over. Sadly, this software is not free and at this moment I cannot afford buying it, so I had to turn down the full-version upgrade offer.

This, however, brought me back to Fleschcards. I found out that a member of BrillKids forum has put these cards into the PPT format and kindly made these freely available. Big thanks to annisis!

I started with the first three lists and I can see that LM is now successfully blending sounds! She sounds out every letter, then blends the last two sounds and then blends both of them with the beginning sound. I know these are still very early "phonics days" but I think she is now at an entirely different level. I also think I now have a better understanding of why LM had difficulties blending sounds initially, but I think I should write up my thoughts in a separate post.

My plan for now is to continue with Fleschcards and to try out some other first reader books. LM has also started to enjoy starfall.com which is absolutely great. I don’t want to lose the momentum but I know with my daughter I need to tread very carefully to make sure reading becomes her favourite activity and not a chore. I you have any tips or recommendations, please feel free to share them in the comments. I will greatly appreciate your input!

Soft Mozart: Dénouement

As a way to conclude my excessively long saga about choosing a piano programme for LM, let me announce that we have received Soft Mozart software and have used it for a week now!

LM has practiced two more pieces this week (“Hot Cross Buns” and “French Song”). After three weeks of playing nothing but “Ode to Joy”, which is a bit more advanced than the rest of the introductory pieces, these were given a cordial welcome and did not present much challenge. LM could play the songs with both hands the first time she saw them on the first presentation with quite a good score.

LM is also doing well with the exercises suggested in the curriculum. I have to admit I was very sceptical initially about the benefits of Hanon stretching exercises and the like to a four-year-old, but I do see how these seem to be helping her with playing the pieces. Her coordination is improving and so is the strength of her fingers. Quite surprisingly, she also happens to love playing the exercises although she was a bit rebellious when I first suggested them.

I plan to keep our music routine to short daily sessions five days a week, at least for now, since these seem to be working for us. I would like to devote more time to solfeggio, ear training and, perhaps, start looking for ways to introduce some theory concepts too.

I am very likely to be updating this topic!

Soft Mozart or Piano Wizard: My Decision

Yesterday I finally made up my mind and placed an order for Soft Mozart (Home Version).

Although my initial intention was to test both programmes and pick the one best suited for LM, I decided not to try out PW and simply went for SM.

The reasons for this decision are numerous. First of all, LM seems to have made a very good progress with a demo version of SM, which, no doubt, would not be possible with traditional lessons in LM’s case. She can now play a passable “rendition” (well, for a four-year-old!) of “Ode to Joy” on the third presentation (both hands and no assistance from me) and, now that she is getting comfortable navigating the game herself, she has been insisting on playing it on the sixth presentation, which shows the piece in an equivalent of conventional notation. This has been going quite well too and although at this stage she is probably relying on her memory, she does appear to refer to the screen and follows the notes with her gaze. Since this method seems to be working, I feel discouraged to try an alternative. Even if PW is a superior method, trying it now would probably cause confusion since LM has got a good hang of SM’s approach.

Secondly, there are many things I came to liking about SM, which I could not find in PW, at least not in the available videos, and which I would be very likely to miss in PW if I tried it. Please correct me if I am wrong and have misinterpreted the videos, as I have never actually tried PW. For instance, even at the most basic level SM prominently shows the lines of the great stave coloured in such way that it leaves no room for confusion as to which part should be played by which hand. In PW these lines are quite feeble and I can see how that might be somewhat confusing to LM.

In SM each piece can be presented in six ways of gradually increasing difficulty. In PW the levels are four, and I feel that the transition from level 3 to level 4 could be too steep for LM. Although this might go easily with pieces she would have practiced and partially memorised, I think overall it would take her longer to come to the stage where she could sight-read unknown pieces at that presentation or even from sheets, which is the ultimate goal of both approaches. Also, as I have mentioned before, having same colours representing different notes and different colours representing same notes, would not help the transition, neither would it make it easy for her to differentiate between notes lying on the lines and those in the spaces between the lines of the staves when learning to read sheet music.

SM lets you stop and think before playing each note and would not move until you get it right, while in PW notes keep scrolling up and if you did not hit the correct one at the correct time, you have missed it. As much as I agree with Chris that a “note played out of time is not a correct note”, in my very modest layman opinion, if I wanted to learn to read music notation, I would want to be able to be more in control of the flow, at least initially, and to stop and see how each key relates to the staves, just as I would want to stop and think when reading a text-book. I do, however, realise that with SM, I would need to do some additional work to help LM understand rhythm and note duration.

SM places a lot of emphasis on learning solfeggio and, as someone with a few years of attending an ex-Soviet music school (although all happily buried in the past!), I relate deeply to it. I did not notice any such emphasis in PW.

Last, but not least, SM has a cheaper basic version with an option of upgrading it to the deluxe version in the future which is so much “friendlier” to our family pocket.

I have come across a few negative points mentioned regarding SM but none of these were major stumbling blocks for me or LM. SM does not have a polished and sophisticated interface, but it does the trick for LM who is completely unsophisticated in terms of video games. In the long-term the novelty of a more flashy game would ultimately wear off and, at the end of the day, it is not a game I am looking for but a tool for helping LM to learn and SM delivers in this respect. LM does not see it as a toy anyway as I have so far used SM as part of very short (5 to 15 minutes) but focused and strongly reinforced sessions. I do, however, let her navigate the game herself and make choices regarding which hand to play and on what presentation, so she does feel in control of her learning. She is also very motivated about these sessions as she always gets a small prize at the end. I feel this way I can ensure the method works for her in the long-term too.

Finally, I would like to emphasize that this decision has been made purely on the grounds of what programme I think is likely to be a better fit for LM. This does not mean that what, in my opinion, would or would not work for her, would equally apply to another child. None of the above comments were intended as criticism of PW which I have never used. Neither am I affiliated in any way with SM and I paid the full price for the product.

I do believe that both programmes are quite break-throughs and it is great that I was in  a position of choosing between the two.

Soft Mozart Demo Trial: Our Progress So Far

Having decided on “trying before buying”, I downloaded demo versions of “Gentle Piano” and “Guess the Key” games. This went quite smoothly and I had no trouble with the MIDI connection either.

Since the software creator and owner, gave her permission to copy the image of the key stickers from her website to try out the demo, I did so, but rather than using these as guides behind the keys, I coloured them in and turned them into stickers to make it easier for LM to get the idea. This is what the keyboard looks like now (after quite a bit of effort!):

I also downloaded a one-year Soft Mozart curriculum, solfeggio flashcards, as well as the first part of the solfeggio song freely available on their website.

LM has been playing these two games for about a couple of weeks now. I have so far kept our “piano playing” sessions to 5-15 minutes every day, excluding week-ends. During the first week, we started off by listening to the solfeggio song and sequencing the flashcards with solfeggio pictograms. The visual sequence “sank in” easily, and after we sang the song a couple of times, I started hiding one of the flashcards and asking LM to tell me which one was missing. The curriculum suggests prompting the child to count to the missing card, which, I guess, would be appropriate for an auditory learner, but since LM is a visual learner, she did not need to repeat the sequence and would name the missing card almost immediately.

We then played “Guess the Key” game. Being a demo version, it only has two levels covering notes do (C) to mi (E). LM quite liked “helping the elf collect fruit”, but she wanted to “feed the spider too” and would sometimes wait for him to come out and take the fruit. What I like about this game is that it automatically adjusts to your speed, so if you keep missing the notes, it slows down, lets you think without overwhelming you and repeats the same level. If you are progressing well, the game may even “decide” to skip a level. LM is doing well with it, although we still need to do a bit of work on flats and sharps. I have also started covering the screen, as this video suggests, to let her guess the key by ear, as I think it is not only a good pitch-training exercise, but, in LM's case, is a great “listening” exercise, as part of her speech and language development programme.

Before proceeding to Gentle Piano, I first prompted LM to play a five-finger exercise suggested by the curriculum, which involved playing five notes from do (middle C) up and down with the right hand, and then repeating the same exercise but from the small octave with the left hand. Somehow, having done this exercise, LM decided that these keys could only be played by these specific fingers so when we got to “Ode to Joy” in “Gentle Piano” and I prompted her to play the right hand, she would only press the matching symbols on the stickers with this precise fingering. Although the fingering was not wrong, it meant that her focus was more on choosing the correct finger than on playing the tune.

The game gives you two different scores: the one on the left side is for the number of notes you have played correctly and the one on the right side shows how close you have been to the perfect timing. While the bigger the score on the left is, the better you have performed, when it comes to the score on the right, you should strive to bring it as close to 0 as possible. This area of the game, in my very modest opinion, could be improved for young learners. While the left-hand score for hitting the correct notes is represented by flowers, and the more flowers you have got the better you have done, there is no visual representation of the score on the right reflecting your timing. Being a perfectionist, LM would get a perfect or near perfect score in terms of correct notes hit, but her timing, at least initially, was quite far from the ideal and this was not represented in a visual way to have any meaning to her. I have found it difficult to explain to her that while it is great to get so many flowers, we also need to make the number on the right smaller. So this has been of little motivational value to her.

I have, however, been using my usual “token economy” and strong backup reinforcers to incentivise LM and to ensure this activity is perceived by her as highly rewarding. She earns a token every time she plays the piece or does an exercise, and after she completes the token board, she gets a small prize.

We have so far progressed from playing separate hands on the first presentation, to playing both hands on the fourth presentation (with red and blue circles moving horizontally, no pictograms), and I have to say that her transitioning from one presentation to another has been pretty smooth and did not significantly affect her scores, which are now fairly good (that is the score on the right is not higher than the score on the left). I don’t think she is playing by heart yet as her eyes are always on the screen, so it will be interesting to see how she progresses over the two remaining levels. When she plays the piece with both hands though, she sometimes either forgets to change the cord or releases it too soon, so I still need to occasionally prompt her with her left hand to make her learning as “errorless” as possible. According to the creator, “Ode to Joy” is more difficult for little hands in terms of coordination than the other pieces of the elementary level, such as “Hot Cross Buns”, “French Song” and “Jingle Bells”. So, ideally, we should have learned to play those before “Ode to Joy”. But LM seems to be steadily getting there and she is very close to being able to play both hands completely independently.

Overall, I have been quite pleased with LM’s progress so far, which, bearing in mind her motor delay and coordination difficulties, has been pretty good. As a by-product, I have noticed her pencil grip has considerably improved over the past couple of weeks.

Discharged from ENT!

Just wanted to share some good news: LM has been discharged from the ENT (Ear/Nose/Throat) clinic! Her hearing was checked for the third time yesterday and the test showed normal hearing in her left ear and slightly below the norm in her right one (which should not be too much of a concern), and no otitis media! Two years ago she was tested several times over the period of four months and all of the tests showed mild to moderate hearing loss due to persistent otitis media, which was not at all helpful with her speech and language delay. After a particularly nasty ear infection accompanied by an ear drum rapture, she had an operation and had grommets inserted in both ears to help her hearing. The grommets have now fallen out and we needed to undertake more tests to see if another set would be necessary.

The current test results mean we have escaped the second operation as she seems to have won over the wicked moster of “glue ear”. Although it is only one hurdle cleared, I do hope, with all my heart, she will get there!

Activities to Encourage Using Two-Word Phrases

First of all, my welcome to Christine and thank you for your interest! I feel flattered that you found my ramblings worth reading, and if you want to share your thoughts or ideas, please feel free to leave your comments!

Continuing from a previous post, I will now list a few more activities LM was recommended in the past by her speech and language therapist. She was then at a two-word level in her language understanding, but still used mostly single-word utterances. These were intended to help her start using two-word phrases more often.

Basic Rules

It is important to speak in short phrases so that your child can copy you. The basic rule is still to repeat what the child says and add an extra word, e.g. “dog” – “dog eating”.

Repeat the same phrases over and over again in everyday situations, e.g. “hello daddy”, “bye John”, “cat gone”, etc. When carrying out routine tasks, such as laying the table or tidying up, use opportunities to say who the objects belong to, such as “daddy’s spoon”, “mummy’s book”.

Books

Look at pictures in books and talk about what is happening instead of reading the books, e.g. “baby sleeping”.

Shopping Game

Set up a shop and place a few items or pictures of food or toys on the table. Ask your child to buy you two things, e.g. “apple and cheese”. Then take your turn to “go shopping” and encourage your child to tell you which two things to buy. You can use this activity to practice using some essential vocabulary, such as food, toys, clothes etc.

Colouring

Get a picture of a boy and a girl, or a teddy and a dolly, or a man and a lady. You can use your own drawing or try it with any colouring books your child has. Encourage your child to tell you which parts of the pictures to colour, e.g. “the girl’s arm”, “dolly’s dress”, etc.

Teddy and Dolly

Put a teddy and a dolly (or any alternative pair of toys, perhaps, your child’s favourites) and a selection of objects (e.g. cup, plate, spoon, fork, etc) in front of the child. Ask your child to give one of the objects to either dolly or teddy, e.g. “give the plate to dolly”, “give the spoon to teddy”, etc. Encourage your child to tell you what to do next, e.g. “fork dolly”.

You can use this activity to practice some useful action words, such as sleep, jump, eat, kick, wash, run, sit, drink, etc. Ask the child to make “dolly run” or “teddy jump”, etc. The child can then tell you what to play with next, e.g. “dolly sit”.

After you finish playing, encourage your child to tell you where to put the toys, e.g. “teddy box”, “dolly bed”, etc.

This activity can be extended in many ways and made more difficult as your child progresses.

Lotto

If your child knows basic shapes, colours and “big”/”little” adjectives, you can practice these by playing lotto. Create little boards with 4 alternating pictures, for instance, red circle/blue circle, yellow triangle/green triangle, big dog/little dog, green apple/blue apple, etc. Also cut out separate pictures with the same images. Give a board to your child and keep one for yourself, then take turns picking a picture from the pile and encourage your child to say what they have and what they need to complete their board.

Hope some other mums may find these activities useful for their children,

LM's Mum

Piano Wizard or Soft Mozart?

I still haven’t made up my mind as to which programme to go for and have been busy researching these two software products. The packages offered and the prices are quite different, so I have been trying to strip these of any bonuses or extras, however valuable they may be, to be able to compare the core of each method and choose the one most likely to work for LM, taking into account her strengths and challenges. If I can get down to the foundation of each programme, I can then consider everything that comes on top of it before making the final decision. I haven’t used any of the approaches, and my research so far has been purely Internet-based.

Both systems offer a step by step approach to learning to play the piano keyboard from day one and ultimately transition learners to reading sheet music. Both of them are much more than simple “piano simulation” computer games and offer beginner-level piano curricula. Neither of them is a substitute of a good piano teacher, but they can get you as far as understanding the written language of music, learning to hit the right note at the right time, and can actually teach you to play quite a few pieces, which, I guess, is a very good start, particularly if you can’t afford a teacher. This approach would be a great tool for teaching very young kids, those with language comprehension difficulties, or simply those who learn better by seeing and doing rather than by listening and speaking, as it provides the necessary visual support and does not rely much on music theory and verbal explanation.

Piano Wizard is a multi-level game which comes with various support materials, including detailed DVD lessons taking you to PW Academy, which lays foundation of music theory, dynamics and technique.

Soft Mozart, on the other hand, is, in fact, a series of multi-level interactive games, each targeting a specific skill necessary for playing the piano. It also comes with a one-year beginner curriculum, covering some aspects of music theory, solfege, harmony and performance.

The two parts of the packages, which appear comparable and which form the basis of the programmes, are the actual PW game and SM Gentle Piano module. Both games have a similar concept of rotating the great stave vertically thus showing how it relates to the piano keys. They both let the players focus on a specific line and, at the same time, encourage them look ahead. These two videos below, in my opinion, give quite a good idea of the steps involved in each respective method.

Piano Wizard: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_o1vjXHGrc

Soft Mozart: http://www.youtube.com/user/lenkaolenka#p/u/9/6bUeNO6U7tI

As these videos show, both PW and SM start out at their most basic levels as simple matching games – you match colours (in PW) or symbols (in SM) on the stickers to those of/on the objects/circles reaching the focus line on the screen, which should be easy enough even for a very young child. Over the next few levels, they gradually transition you to the conventional musical notation. These two programmes, however, appear to use completely different support mechanisms, or, let’s call these “crutches” (not in a bad sense), which are gradually removed to allow independent “piano walk”.

PW relies solely on colours to represent each key and this support is removed after the game is flipped horizontally and the moving game objects turn into notes. Colour to colour match is very simple and would allow anyone to get started on the piano. The first two levels have a fun computer game-like appearance, with a variety of colourful backgrounds, which would be appealing to game-savvy kids who would not even realise they are practicing. In PW music keeps going whether or not you have hit the right key, to emphasise the idea that music indeed goes on whether you can keep up with it or not, and a note played out of time is not a correct note.

I haven’t, however, figured out how the game manages to get the learner over the fact that each line/space on the staff cannot be assigned one specific colour with the same ease as (all of) the keys of the keyboard, since there is no exact correspondence between the two. For instance, looking at the upper stave, A (“la”), which is assigned a specific space, would be represented either by a brown, or a blue (if flat) or a green (if sharp) note. Likewise, G (“sol”) could be a blue-coloured note too, if sharp, but it would not be in the same space on the stave, but on the line below. Unless I got it completely wrong (correct me if I did!), this would potentially confuse LM at Step 3, when the moving objects become moving notes on the actual stave and could make her transitioning to Step 4 (black and white notes) quite challenging. The programme, however, claims that learners, who reach that stage, stop relying so much on the colours and, presumably with practice, learn intuitively the underlying logic of music notation and how keys correspond to lines and spaces of the great stave.

SM, on the other hand, relies on a series of support mechanisms, which are gradually removed, as the game progresses. The stickers, with symbols representing notes (solfege or letters) and green/brown lines delineating the grand staff, are only attached to white keys. To the best of my knowledge, the beginner pieces do not involve using any black keys as they are written in do (C) major. The great stave is already prominent at Level 1, although modified and in a vertical position. Once you are comfortable with symbol to symbol matching, the symbols can be removed and you remain with either red (representing line notes) or blue (space notes) circles and match these to red/blue stickers on the keys, while having the green and brown lines on the keyboard as points of reference. These two steps are then repeated with the staves rotated horizontally after which, the circles become regular black notes moving on the staves towards the focus line, at which stage the appearance of the game becomes similar to PW’s Step 4. SM then goes one step further, to actually present all pieces in a static sheet format on the screen with green light highlighting each note as it is played. As for flats and sharps, these, if I understand correctly, are introduced in more advanced pieces by showing tiny black rectangles with flat or sharp signs to the left or to the right of the symbol picture suggesting that a black key to the left or to the right should be played instead.

Unlike PW, in SM the game waits for you to hit the note and will not move further unless you have succeeded, which allows you to be more in control of the music flow and to stop and think before hitting the keys.

Which one would be better for LM? I ask myself this question but I know the proof of the pudding is in the eating, particularly if this pudding is on LM’s plate, who has not followed the typical developmental profile, who may be challenged by what would be easy for a typical child, and, vice versa, could find very easy something a typical child would not. Additionally, both products will be different as to how they measure the progress and respond to errors, which I have left out of my research, since these nuances are difficult to appreciate and compare until you use the software.

Anyway, the good news for me is that it is possible to try both programmes before investing the precious dollars. SM offers free easily downloadable demos of all of their games, including Gentle Piano, as well as a free one-year curriculum. These should give a very good idea of the actual product as they are simply their much shorter versions.

PW, on the other hand, comes with a two-month (at least for BrillKids members) customer satisfaction guarantee, after which, if the product did not work for you, you can return the game and get your money back.

Since trying out SM seems to be an easier option, as I can start immediately and will not lose any shipping charges should I decide to return it, this is the programme I will start with. My aim is to try it over the following couple of months and see how far LM will be able to make with it, before "gambling" shipping costs on PW.

I see that this post has gone into quite an essay now, so I am going to stop here. Will be updating on our progress!

Piano for Visual Learners

I mentioned some time ago about my plans to increase LM’s music exposure and to, perhaps, start introducing her to the idea of playing a musical instrument. The benefits of listening to music are well-known and unquestionable, but playing music goes as far as “fine-tuning” the brain’s auditory system and has a profound impact on speech and language, memory and attention, and even emotional development.

Playing the piano offers further benefits as it involves playing with both hands  and is, therefore, a great coordination and fine motor skill exercise, working the corpus callosum in your brain – yet another important focus area in our homeschool. Since I received some piano training in my (very distant!) past, I feel I would be more comfortable to help LM with this instrument.

A couple of months ago I tried Music for Little Mozarts, as I wrote here, but, unfortunately, LM did not share my excitement about the programme and we did not progress very far with it. It did not offer enough visual stimuli to LM, the Beethoven Bear and Mozart Mouse storyline did not inspire her to explore the black and white keys and was simply beyond her level of comrehension. This is why, at that point, I decided to leave teaching her to play the piano aside till, perhaps, she was ready one day.

My hopes rekindled when I learned about two software programmes, which looked like they could provide the missing visual support to learning the piano.  The two programmes in question are Piano Wizard and Soft Mozart and they both offer a game-like approach to learning to play the piano (keyboard) and, ultimately, to read sheet music. They both claim to be suitable for young children and older learners with a variety of aptitudes, and have excellent reviews. This could be a way round her current auditory comrehension difficulties!

Having raised some sponsorship from LM’s grandparents and procured a more decent keyboard, I have found myself at crossroads, as I can’t make up my mind as to which one to go for! Neither of the programmes comes cheap, and with money being a HUGE issue for our family, I have to be careful with my investment.

While the two programmes seem to be very similar at first glance, you will find some essential differences once you look at them more carefully. The creators of both programmes Chris Salter (Piano Wizard) and Hellene Hiner (Soft Mozart) have been great contributors to BrillKids forum and they have had a few very heated discussions regarding a variety of subjects pertaining to musical education. If you would like to learn more about these programmes, I recommend reading through those discussions (trying to remain impartial to the contributors' communication styles!).

I will continue researching these two methods and will write up my thoughts. In the meantime, if you have had experience with any of these programmes or are simply willing to share your views, I will greatly appreciate your input!

What a Feeling!

What a fantastic feeling to open my dashboard and see another follower! Thank you for joining me, Tracy, and thank you for educating me about VACTERL. I have to admit, to my great shame, I knew very little about it.

You are doing a great job at your homeschool and I loved your new video of Maggie reading!

Activities to Encourage Speech and Language Development For Younger Children

I wrote some time ago about my DIY plans regarding LM’s speech and language, and described the activities we currently do to improve her listening. I thought I would also step back and review the activities we had done in the past hoping these may be of help to some visitors of my blog.

When LM was initially referred to have her speech and language assessed by a therapist a couple of years ago, she could only say a handful of short words. I was given a list of recommendations targeting her vocabulary, understanding and use of language. Some of the suggestions were quite common sense while some were something I hadn't really thought of before. I suppose that these activities would be relevant for preverbal children or those at a single-word level in terms of their language. In fact, some of these activities can be started from birth as a preventative measure to help the child hit the language milestones on time.

5-Minute Play

One of the most important activities I was recommended by the speech and language therapist was to introduce short 5-minute play sessions throughout the day – as often as I could. The following are the list of rules I was to stick to.

1.    Remove all pressure to talk – DON’T ask your child to repeat what you say and DON’T ask questions (you know the answers to!).

2.    Sit at the same level as the child so that they can see your face – lying on the sofa while your baby is playing on the carpet won’t do; reduce any background noise.

3.    Follow your child’s lead and copy their play in silence – if your child starts banging toys, do exactly the same. This is intended to attract your child’s attention.

4.    Wait for your child to make an eye contact with you:

a.    If they look at you but don’t say anything, smile and say a word for what they have in their hand or say a word for the action they are carrying out;

b.    If they make a noise, but not a specific word, try to guess what they are saying, praise them with a nod, a smile, and model the word you think they are trying to say;

c.    If they say a word and it’s close but not quite right, do not correct (saying, "oh no, it is wrong!"), but again praise them and model  the word you think they are trying to say clearly, e.g. if they say “gog”, you reply “mmm, dog!”

d.    If they say a word and it is clear, repeat the word and add on another, for example, “baby” – “mmm, baby’s sleeping!”

Running Commentary

Outside the five-minute play sessions, during bath times, feeding times and when outside, provide simple 1-2 word commentary. For example, you could get down to your child’s level during their bath time and use words like “splash, splash”, “soap”, “duck”, “quack, quack”, etc.

Copying All Vocalisations, Words and Sounds

Never leave your child’s vocalisations unnoticed. This will give your child good feedback and will encourage them to copy your sounds and words. Add simple sounds to everything, such as “brum-brum”, when playing with a car, etc.

Pretend Play

I was also advised to encourage LM’s pretend play skills by modelling simple play sequences. Show your child how you bath, brush, feed and dress a doll or a teddy. You can do it during play times as well as bath times and mealtimes.

Body Part Awareness

You can work on body part awareness during mealtimes, bath times and play times. For example, during bath times get to your child’s level so they can see your face and introduce each body part by emphasising the word while doing the action, e.g. “Let’ put soap on your head.”

Offering Choices

When offering something, don’t just give a single object, but provide a choice and encourage your child to make their choice by looking, pointing, reaching, gesturing or vocalising. When the child makes a choice, give it to them while saying the name of it. For instance, during a snack time you may want to offer them an apple or banana; if they choose the banana, you give it to them saying “banana”.

Singing and Sign Language

Encourage your child to add sounds, words, and actions to nursery songs, such as “The “Wheels on the Bus”, “Old McDonald”, etc. Introduce the animal sounds with simple signs. Put toy animals in a bag and bring them out one by one making the sound and the sign for each. Encourage your child to add sounds, words and actions. (Sign language is a brilliant tool to enhance language, but this could be a whole new topic, so I will not dwell on it here.)

Looking through Books

Introduce name of animals, food, etc. in simple stories, such as “The Very Hungry Caterpillar”, “Dear Zoo”. You can combine this activity with the previous one. For example, you can get a bag with the animals featured in “Dear Zoo” and use them as props while you read the book and let you child hold the toys.

Encouraging Eye Contact

This used to be LM’s weakest area and I was advised to encourage her to look at my face with simple things like playing “peek-a-boo” and making faces and sounds while sitting at her level. One of the great activities which helped was blowing bubbles and saying “ready, steady, go!” while holding the bubble stick near my face. I gradually increased the time she had to wait looking at me before I blew the bubbles.

I will update this post if I remember more activities.

LM’s Mum

Extension of Mandala Activity – Colouring within Lines

Colouring has never been LM’s favourite activity. No number of new crayons, pens, pencils and markers or colouring books with her favourite characters could make this idea attractive to her. In the end, it was strong reinforcement, moving from very small basic pictures towards more complicated drawings with multiple sections and ensuring that she is successful at each step which got her to accept colouring as not such a bad idea after all.

Although her technique has greatly improved, she still struggles to stay within the lines. One way to progress in this area is to start with basic line drawings with smaller colouring areas and thicker outlines and gradually increase the colouring areas and fade the thickness of the outlines. Depending on your child’s level of skill you may start with colouring areas as small as one square inch and lines as thick as one inch to ensure that the child is successful at each step.

I have described here the Mandala activity I am starting with LM. Although the original right-brain method does not require colouring the patterns, I thought I might as well let her colour them in at the end of the exercise and also double this as a “Colouring within the Lines” activity. So my plan is to widen the outlines with a thick marker (to save ink) and then gradually narrow these down to see if that will help her improve this motor skill.

Mandala Activity

I would like to begin this post by thanking Shen-Li for becoming my follower! I have to say I am honoured and thrilled that such a seasoned blogger in the field of early childhood development has found my novice journal worth visiting again.  I have been stalking Babylicious, one of Shen-Li’s own blogs, and I have to say it is my absolute favourite! This blog is well-known among supporters of early education and needs no promotion, but if for any reason you have not seen it yet and you would like to learn more about the most current ideas regarding parenting, do subscribe to it!

Shen-Li writes a lot about right-brain education, which is a fairly recent movement in early education and which has been attracting devotees all over the world. The information published on her blog is not easily available anywhere so you can be sure to learn something you have never heard of before.

Inspired by one of Shen-Li’s posts, I have come up with the idea of creating this versatile mandala activity.

I cut out a few different shapes out of cheap thin felt, which can be laid on top of one another on a white felt board (you can find the instructions on how to make a felt/flannel board here) to create numerous mandala patterns. I have started with very basic patterns for now but, depending on how well LM does with these, I might move her onto something a bit more complex.

This could make an activity as it is and you can let your very young child experiment by making his/her own patterns while practicing colour and shape names. However, if you would like to use it as a right-brain activity and strengthen your child’s photographic memory, then draw the black and white outlines of your patterns on paper, follow Shen-Li’s instructions and reuse these pieces time and again to create new combinations.

I have drawn a dozen easy mandala outlines containing basic shapes, which could be a place to start if your child, like mine, is completely new to this kind of activity. Feel free to download these here and use them as a size guide when cutting out felt shapes.

Bye for now!

Art Matching

Matching is a fun activity which reinforces visual discrimination and concentration and which is an important prerequisite skill for reading and writing. We started this activity with LM long time ago and have progressed from simple picture-to-picture matching to matching shapes, letters, numbers, words, words to pictures, numbers to quantities, matching emotions, etc.

I ended up with so many sheets that I created a “Matching Book” which is, quite basically, an A4 folder where I would “mix and match” different sheets and which I would offer to LM as an activity to complete independently to keep her busy for a few precious minutes.

I recently added a few more picture-to-picture sheets which are, in fact, reproductions of famous masterpieces.

The idea came after I had bought this colouring book, which, to my disappointment, did not have any colour reproductions of the paintings. As I needed to procure full colour versions of the masterpieces for LM’s reference, I decided to double this as a matching activity.

These sheets will probably deserve a separate folder as I am planning to extend this activity in the future by turning this into title-to-painting and artist-to-painting matching activity. Another thought would be to take this idea and to create a few “I spy” tasks to find some details in the picture, but this, for now, is only at the “planning stage”.