Intense learning

 Here are some reflections from February and March, seriously how quickly is this year marching on? 

Sophia unboxed a random science experiment and set up a crystal tree, from reading the instructions and deciphering the pictures by herself. This confusing plain piece of cardboard placed in water, absorbs so much water! I realised it didn't produce any new crystals yesterday and was shocked the water had disappeared, so it's had another watering and we shall see what happens long term. 

Sophia's reading skills are powering on, she surprises me on a daily basis. She is slowly moving from reading methodically, with a stop, start rhythm and she is beginning to flow more naturally, reading with inflection and considering the punctuation. If she doesn't understand what she's just read, she'll read it to herself and then out loud again before moving on. This proves she is comprehending what she's reading and not just memorising words, she wants it to make sense to her. 

She finished 9a and 9b Peter and Jane during this time period, and is just over half way through 10b Peter and Jane now. She also enjoys reading from the shelf, and YouTube subtitles too multiple times a day. 

I brought Kira a few National geographic books, at reading level 2, as they are bright, colourful, factual and easy to read. Surprisingly she does not care for the series at all (that's kids for you!). Sophia on the other hand took a shine to them straight away and has loved reading them with me. Particular favourites have included the 'Creepy, crawly collection' and 'meteors', which we read on a regular basis. We were delighted to discover that you can download and read them on the kids Amazon fire tablets too which is great! 

Writing has been another area of intense focus from Sophia these past couple of months, and again her dedication has massively paid off in terms of understanding and progression. She is beginning to sound out words that she wants to spell on her own, and over time has perfected the words happy, love, day, yes. She rewrote her first story she ever created and had dictated back to her so she could see the difference in her writing skill over a year. She was very impressed and laughed at her best writing example back then. On her last spelling test she recalled twenty word family spelling mechanics in one session, proving she has recalled all the  spellings from across the school year thus far. 

She has shown an interest in the comprehension books from the Peter and Jane set and she is looking forward to picking out a prize when she has completed all twelve. She has completed the first two over the last two days in one half an hour session each. She finds them funny and she loves the fact that comprehension is basically puzzles and codes which you have to work out. She particularly likes the jumbled sentences. I thought to try her because I found her one day easily decoding jumbled words from a random activity book. She has flown through this first few books without a pause. 

Sophia has lost three teeth in the last month so she's earnt two writing sets and stamps from the tooth fairy! She has six penpals now and tries to write to them regularly, which means frequent walks to the post box. Sophia wants to write to Adley (from A for Adley YouTube channel). I am currently working out the logistics of this....

She has rediscovered the packs of sight word Flashcards and has been voluntarily been practicing them on her own. Her vocabulary has certainly grown since the last time we concentrated on them. She was excitedly squealing whenever she read one correctly. 

I am very excited about her progress, but as  it is with all intense periods of interests with autistic children, I know the interest will burn out at some point, and a new subject will take its place. However she has proved in the past that the recall remains even if she moves on and doesn't pick up a pencil for a few weeks. 

I let her capitalise on her intense focus for as long as it lasts, as the learning potential is expansive during these times. It is showing little sign of slowing thus far, a phase like this can last months. 

She had an intense drawing phase for about six months once, everything else paled in comparison and progression was slowed down in other areas. Her drawing skills increased massively however. 

She has had a phase of intense gymnastics and dance a couple of years ago with similar results, which has resulted in a long term passion in both exercises....more on this in future blogs. Stay tuned for the next installment of Sophia's progress in the last couple of months. 





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