The SnapWords® System and Neurodiversity: Supporting Different Learning Needs

Helping Every Child Participate in Reading Instruction

Children bring different strengths, experiences, and instructional needs into the classroom.

Some readily recognize patterns in printed words. Others need additional opportunities to connect sounds with letters, practice spelling patterns, or retrieve familiar words from memory.

Some children benefit from movement and hands-on activities. Others need extra time, repetition, or explicit demonstrations before a new skill becomes secure.

At Child1st, our goal has always been to create resources that help more children participate successfully in learning.

Founder Sarah Major developed the SnapWords® System after observing that some children who struggled with traditional word-learning activities responded positively when instruction included meaningful illustrations, body motions, stories, and hands-on experiences.

These elements remain important features of SnapWords® today.

The goal is not to assign children to fixed learning-style categories. It is to provide explicit literacy instruction with additional supports that teachers can use according to each child's needs.

What Does Neurodiversity Mean in Reading Instruction?

Neurodiversity refers to the natural variation in how human brains develop and function.

In education, discussions of neurodiversity often include children with dyslexia, ADHD, autism, and other differences that may influence attention, communication, language, memory, or learning.

However, children with the same diagnosis do not necessarily have the same strengths or instructional needs.

One child may need additional support remembering sound-spelling relationships. Another may have difficulty sustaining attention during lengthy lessons. A third may understand a concept but need more opportunities to demonstrate that understanding.

Effective instruction begins by identifying what each child knows, what the child needs to learn next, and which supports help the child make progress.

For reading, all children need opportunities to develop essential literacy skills, including phonemic awareness, phonics, decoding, spelling, word recognition, vocabulary, comprehension, and fluency.

The instruction and supports used to develop those skills can be adjusted to meet individual needs.

How SnapWords® Provide Multiple Ways to Engage With Words

The SnapWords® System combines explicit literacy instruction with visual, verbal, tactile, and kinesthetic reinforcement.

Rather than relying on one activity, a lesson can provide several opportunities to work with the same word.

Children may:

• Hear and say the word.

• Identify the individual sounds in the word.

• Connect those sounds with letters and spelling patterns.

• Examine a meaningful illustration integrated into the printed word.

• Use a body motion or verbal cue.

• Trace, build, spell, or write the word.

• Practice recognizing the word without the illustration.

• Read the word in sentences and connected text.

These activities serve different instructional purposes.

The phonics instruction helps children understand how the written word represents speech sounds. The illustration and movement can provide meaningful reinforcement. Writing and retrieval practice help children apply and strengthen what they have learned.

Teachers do not need to use every activity with every child. Instead, they can select the supports that are appropriate for the word, the skill being taught, and the child's response to instruction.

A SnapWords® Mini-Lesson Example: Teaching HIGH

One way to see how the system works is to examine a Mini-Lesson for the word HIGH.

Sarah Major used this word to demonstrate how a single lesson can combine meaning, phonics, movement, spelling, and word-family practice.

1. Introduce the Word and Its Meaning

Show the SnapWords® card for HIGH.

Tell the children what the word says and use it in a meaningful sentence:

"The beam is very HIGH in the air!"

Invite the children to reach upward as high as they can while saying the word.

Study the illustration together and discuss how it connects to the meaning of HIGH.

2. Examine the Sounds and Spellings

Say HIGH aloud and help children identify its two phonemes:

/h/ /ī/

Explain that although HIGH contains four letters, it has two sounds.

The letter H represents /h/, and the three-letter spelling IGH represents the long I sound, /ī/.

Draw attention to the fact that several letters can work together to represent one sound.

3. Reinforce the IGH Spelling With Movement

Children can form the letters with their hands while saying the spelling pattern and its sound.

This gives them another way to rehearse a spelling they have been explicitly taught.

4. Practice Spelling and Writing

Remove the card from view.

Ask the children to say HIGH, identify its sounds, and write the word on their personal whiteboards.

Have them check their spelling against the printed word.

If a child makes an error, return to the sound-spelling relationship and provide additional guided practice.

The objective is to spell and recognize HIGH accurately without relying on the illustration.

5. Explore Other Words With IGH

Once children understand the IGH spelling, introduce additional words containing the same pattern.

Examples include:

sigh, thigh, night, light, might, right, sight, tight, bright, flight, fright, slight

Have children identify the familiar IGH spelling, read the words using their phonics knowledge, and notice how the same spelling appears in different words.

For longer words, provide appropriate support with blending and word structure.

The familiar word HIGH can become a useful reminder of the IGH spelling when children encounter it again.

Extend the Learning Into Children's Books

Learning a word on a card is only one step toward independent reading.

Children also need opportunities to encounter familiar words and spelling patterns in connected text.

The Easy-for-Me™ Children's Readers provide reading practice connected to the skills taught in the Child1st instructional materials.

For example, Sarah's HIGH lesson directs teachers to Set D, Book 4.

The accompanying teaching guidance includes preparation, skill review, and comprehension questions.

Teachers can use these opportunities to help children apply previously taught words and phonics concepts while reading meaningful stories.

The goal is for children to use their developing word-recognition and decoding skills in real reading situations, not only during isolated card activities.

Reinforce Learning With Hands-On Activities

The SnapWords® System also includes opportunities for tactile and kinesthetic reinforcement through Beyond Sight Words Activities.

These activities provide practice involving word recognition, phonemic awareness, phonics, writing, comprehension, fluency, and related literacy skills.

Sarah's original HIGH lesson includes a printable letter-building activity for the IGH word family.

Children can manipulate letter pieces to construct words such as LIGHT, NIGHT, and RIGHT, then read and write the words they have made.

This activity reinforces the connection between sounds and spellings while giving children an opportunity to work actively with the letters.

IGH letter-building printable

Supporting Children With Different Learning Needs

A flexible instructional approach is especially valuable when children need additional support.

For a child who struggles to remember a spelling pattern, the teacher might provide explicit review using a familiar keyword, guided spelling practice, and delayed retrieval.

For a child who finds it difficult to remain seated, the teacher might incorporate brief movement activities, word-card matching, or a personal whiteboard.

For a child who needs additional language support, the teacher might explain the word's meaning, use it in a sentence, and connect it with familiar vocabulary.

For a child who has difficulty transferring a learned word into reading, the teacher can provide additional practice recognizing the word in plain print and connected text.

These are examples of instructional adjustments, not fixed prescriptions for particular diagnoses or learning styles.

The important question is whether the child is learning the intended skill and becoming increasingly independent.

SnapWords® as Part of Structured Literacy Instruction

SnapWords® can be used as supplemental multisensory reinforcement alongside explicit, systematic literacy instruction.

The visual and movement activities do not replace phonemic awareness, phonics, decoding, or spelling instruction.

Instead, they can provide additional ways to reinforce those skills while helping children connect words with meaning.

As children learn, the illustrated support is gradually removed so they practice recognizing words in ordinary print.

The goal remains accurate decoding, automatic word recognition, fluent reading, and comprehension.

A More Inclusive Approach to Reading

Honoring neurodiversity does not mean assuming that every child needs an entirely different reading system.

It means recognizing that children may need different amounts of practice, different instructional supports, and different opportunities to demonstrate what they know.

Sarah Major designed SnapWords® to make learning more meaningful and accessible to children who were not succeeding with the activities they had previously experienced.

That commitment continues through the combination of explicit instruction, meaningful visuals, movement, spelling practice, and connected reading.

When teachers observe children's responses and adjust instruction accordingly, they can help more learners participate, make progress, and develop confidence in their reading abilities.

Explore the SnapWords® System

Learn more about how the Child1st SnapWords® System works and how to teach SnapWords® effectively.