Re: Teaching Aspies to read

[Guest guest]

After having homeschooled 8 children we have come to the conclusion that reading ability and social ability are pretty much unrelated. We've had children learn to read fluently after only a few months of instruction, or after 6 agonizing years--and it makes no difference either way whether they are our Aspies or our neurotypicals (the neurotypicals just take it harder when their friends can read and they can't). Any more we don't even try to start them until age 7 because quick early progress is no indication of the rate of later success. But in the mean time they are read to a lot, either in person or by books on tape.

What we do encourage early on is lots of writing--starting with drawing pictures. They can open up and save artwork files on the computer and operate the scanner before they even know their abc's. They dictate and illustrate books which we then edit and publish. They write letters (which we then have them carefully copy out themselves). They compose magazine articles. By the time their reading ability finally kicks in they have already been living in a world of words for years.

Buck