A Reading Programme for Children with Autism, Speech and Language Impairments and Down syndrome

The POPS Reading Programme is designed for children with Autism, Speech and Language Impairment and Down syndrome.

It is an integrated Reading Scheme supported by Word Cards, Phonic Sets and Educational Games to foster achievement through success and praise. The resources progress in small easy steps. They are designed to be easily adaptable to the individual learning needs of your child.

High frequency and everyday topic words are revisited frequently in text and games in every book. The story lines in the books build a child’s vocabulary, by introducing new words gradually in a range of contexts to reinforce their meaning. The story lines equip the child with functional words for use in general day to day communication.

Build Confidence and Self-Esteem

The POPS Reading Programme offers your child many opportunities to savour success. We all like to participate when we are successful, and this programme seeks to build the child’s self-esteem as they experience success, whatever their reading level.

The reading programme sets out to capture the interest of your child and provide entertainment. By making the reading experience enjoyable and successful, your child will want to read on and cooperate with you in the supporting activities. The variety of activities on each page, mean that your child will enjoy reading the book again and again.

Every page in the book has been designed to offer lots of opportunities for success:

1. A little elephant, called Boo, is hidden in each illustration: a child who enjoys supported reading can independently find the elephant and be praised for this achievement.
2. A child who is beginning to read and has a small sight vocabulary can be given one or two Word Cards from the set supporting the book, and be successful in matching the Word Card to the word when it appears in the text or in the green box at the bottom of each text page.
3. Games are provided at the back of each book for reinforcement and revision; your child may want you to read the story to them, allowing them to play the games
4. Some children may be able to read the first page (Shared Reading Page), a more difficult page designed to be read together by the child and the teacher or parent.

Promote your Child’s Language Development

Designed with Speech Therapists, the reading scheme promotes language development by using the strong connection between learning to read and the development of language skills, “Teach Reading to Teach Talking”. This is achieved by:

• Focusing on the vocabulary needed for everyday life.
• Combining this vocabulary into short complete sentences.
• Using direct speech or oral language to model spoken language.
• Guiding you to develop your child’s language with Speech Therapist exercises in every book.

Use your Child’s Strengths

The reading programme supports children who are strong visual/kinaesthetic learners with clear uncluttered illustrations and large easy to read text. Every book has a set of Word Cards to play lotto, comprehension and sentence completion games and to use in “Name, Match and Select” activities.

The predictable format of the books supports children who need structure and routine in their learning environment. The books start with a Shared Reading Page to be read to your child to develop their fluency and confidence in reading and also to set the scene of the story to come. The ending of each story relates back to the Shared Reading Page so that there is a defined start middle and end sequence.

Reinforce Phonic Skills within a Balanced Reading Programme

Learning phonics skills is important for every child. This fundamental tool will help your child learn to read and provide them with a technique to decode unfamiliar words.

The phonics programme combines practicing sounds and the blending of sounds into simple decodable words using the familiar characters of the POPS family. Large illustrated Word and Picture Cards help your child to first understand the meaning of the word and then to blend the letter sounds together to say the word. Combination Sentence Strips feature words from a specific word family in differing sentences for practice and reinforcement. In addition, Consolidation Sentence Strips feature words from up to four word families.

Making Reading Meaningful and Fun

The reading programme sets out to capture the interest of your child and provide entertainment. By making the reading experience enjoyable and successful, your child will want to read on and cooperate with you in the supported activities. The variety of activities on each page, mean that your child will enjoy reading the book again and again.

The stories are based on the everyday life of the POPS Family. The familiar scenarios and humorous storylines introduce situations that are recognizable and fun. The illustrations are simple, attractive and uncluttered. Every illustration reflects the text, keeping the need for the child to make inferences to a minimum. The characters facial expressions and positioning are designed to help children understand the emotions portrayed.