Special Education
Children are in Special Education for many different reasons. Some children are truly unable to keep up with coursework in their regular classroom and need a program tailored to their ability level.
But there are many children in Special Education because the way they learn is vastly different from how traditional teaching approaches. These students appear to struggle with learning, but many children soar when they have access to learning resources designed for their learning strengths.
What Is hard for them & why they struggle
General education classrooms are led by teachers who are trained to teach using a widely-endorsed set of teaching tools. In addition, most teachers are left-brained and the way they teach reflects this. Obviously, what makes sense to me as a teacher is how I will teach my students. It can be a very disconcerting for a teacher to have a student who seems to speak a completely different language. We explain and explain, but the student just can’t seem to learn. Roughly one half of children don’t take in and process information the way we are used to teaching. For right-brained children, being taught in a left-brained fashion can make learning nearly impossible. Those who just can’t compensate and “translate” what they hear into a format they can understand end up in special education.
How we can help
The reason Child1st came to be was to design learning resources for non-traditional learners. All those children who struggle have different labels, but what unifies them all is the fact they are not left-brained, sequential, verbal learners. So what we do with all our products is take that left-brained, sequential material and we embed the abstract in pictures, explain it with stories that help children make sense of unknown concepts, and we create hands-on activities and full body movement that cements the learning in multiple regions of the brain.
SnapWords® Lists
SnapWords® help children learn words when nothing else has worked before.
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SnapWords® Kits
Save with SnapWords® Kits and get free supporting books that replace lesson prep.
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Beyond Sight Word Activities
Hands on activities and games that teach reading skills while children are learning SnapWords®.
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Phonics and Spelling
Reach for phonics and spelling resources that use pictures and patterns to make sense of our language.
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Children's Readers
Provide reading practice that combines sight words and phonics concepts.
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Rather than looking at your child’s grade level, begin with assessing the skills your child has. If they struggle at all with sounds and letters, that will mark your starting point. Reach for Alphabet Tales, which will make linking letters and sounds unforgettable. The stories and images and hands-on activities will take the needed information into their memory in a way they can process and remember.
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The most direct way to help a child who is stuck is to use SnapWords® to give them a good foundation in high-frequency words. While this may seem like a short-term fix, it really isn’t. Many children who struggle to read need to start with whole words, get the knack of reading, and then they can learn to figure out new words based on the words they already know. SnapWords® Kits also supply the teaching books to follow so that you will be able to guide these struggling readers into a solid knowledge of phonics. SnapWords® will get them unstuck and set them on the path to being able to read successfully.
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Another benefit of using SnapWords® with struggling readers is that the images show the meaning of each word and take children beyond just calling out the word correctly and into understand that the word conveys meaning. Beyond Sight Words Activities, when used in conjunction with SnapWords® will guide the students into using their new vocabulary in ways that reinforce comprehension.
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One of the most common challenges for children who struggle to learn is that their ability to memorize is very low. These students don’t make connections through memorization. They need other ways to make sense of what they are learning and to remember the concepts long enough to use them. Our Phonics and Spelling Kit teaches both skills in ways that bypass the need to memorize. We designed the resources to appeal to the strengths of children – their strong visual abilities, their skill in finding patterns, and their strong body-memory ability.
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Child1st Math resources are specifically designed to show children what is happening in any math procedure. They won’t have to memorize facts because they will learn and remember them because of the stories, visuals and tactile activities utilized. Our Right-Brained Math resources will turn on the lights of learning.