Learning Tools & Ideas #3

Agenesis Corpus Callosum
Parent Teaching Tip:

Parent of 4-year-old child with ACC, says:

"About the only thing we have done that is unique, is our
son (age 4 c-acc) seems to need a lot of repetition to
retain things. So we used painters tape to make his
letters (and numbers) on his bedroom walls."

"He loved this, and it seemed to help him memorize his
letters (we are working on numbers now). We would just
do a couple of letters a week and whenever we would walk
by them we would ask him what they were. Eventually he
started to retain them."


On a personal note:

After reading this parent's tip, my husband went out and got some blue painters tape and adorned our child, Matthew's, bedroom wall with a capital "A" and "B", displayed in the photo above.

I was working on teaching Matthew the letter "B" and the sound "B" makes,

"buh buh....BOY",

"buh buh....BABY",

"buh buh....BEAR"

And he would make the sign for each word. I have been asking Matthew to show me the letter "B" and he will reach up and touch the "B" on his wall!

Then later he was standing by his television in his room (where I was also) when the "Bob the Builder" show came on, with the musical theme song.

Now this is not a show that Matthew watches, but that day it definitely caught his attention to the tune of Matthew babbling bunches of "B" sounds!! I am certain he was telling me that Bob the Builder has the "B" sound. So, with an enthusiastic smile, I told him...

"Yes, you're right". "Bob the Builder starts with the letter B", and then pointed to the big "B" on his bedroom wall.

Matthew's bedroom wall
For some unknown reason, the "A" mysteriously disappeared. My husband reported that someone → points to Matthew ← peeled the "A" off the wall, and it's sticky wadded remains were found in his bedroom. But hey, I'm all for that too...because it helps develop his fine motor skills and eye/hand coordination.

For now, we'll continue to work on the letter "B", which has remained on his bedroom wall for several weeks.

While putting this article together, I was searching the
internet and came across another neat idea using painters
tape and letters, by a different parent.

Much to my delight (with permission from the author:
Summer Kinard) I am able to re-print her terrific
idea here (complete with cute as can be pictures) for
you to see and read:

Summer, Mama of 2 adorable kids, (who do NOT have ACC), wrote:

"We are studying the alphabet, beginning with vowels. Most of the standard methods bore Pip. He abandoned the pasta gluing project after putting just six pieces onto his letter A glue outline, for instance. So I took it in a different, bigger direction. Andrew thought up the idea of putting the juggling balls over the taped outline, which was brilliant. Pip immediately "got" the lesson. Within a few minutes, he was looking for a juggling ball, and he was all, "Oh, there it is. It's on the letter A."

"Blue painter's tape is easy to peel off for at least three weeks. We'll add lowercase "a" next week."

© article and photos re-printed with permission from author.
view original article: A for a kinetic learner

Thank you to Summer Kinard for graciously allowing me to re-print your wonderful article and share it here on the blog.

Thank you also to the parent of a 4-year old child with ACC for your very informative input and great idea!

After reading these fun ideas shared by both parents, I was
inspired with all kinds of blue painter's tape letter
concoctions for how to make learning letters fun by gearing
it to a child's unique learning style and incorporating
motivational toys/items/games that the child loves.

I thought about Amanda (the mom who inspired this learning
tools section) and her son, Beau, who has partial ACC, who
LOVES matchbox cars!

I wondered if Beau might have fun playing with his favorite
cars, lining them up on top of the painter's tape letter "A"
on the floor, or maybe even on the "C" for Car?

One thought that came to me just now (for my child) is:

I plan to put two different pictures of balls (something Matthew loves) inside the top space and bottom space of the "B" on his wall.

Then we can change the pictures with new "B" words
that Matthew is familiar with and likes. He also really
loves....balloons!

You could use real photographs, drawings, you could
cut pictures out of magazines (if that's something your
child likes to do), you could take pictures of your child
holding their favorite Bear, Basketball, Cat, etc., or your
child could draw/color/create pictures of their favorite things that start with the letter "B", or whatever letter
they're working on learning.

I hope that the terrific ideas, shared by both parents, help to inspire all kinds of thoughts and ideas of your own for how to create fun techniques that fit your child's learning style.

These ideas promote Memorization, Multi-Sensory Methods and Meaningful Motivation, things that can help a child make some marvelous learning discoveries.

Plus, they also offer the ability for a child to have as much repetition as they need. And the need for massive amounts of REPETITION is one thing that many kids with Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum have in common!

Do YOU have a learning tool that you would like to share on the ACC blog?

I'd love to hear from you, and so would a lot of other people too, who will be able to see and read all about the learning tools and ideas that you use with your child who has Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum.

It is my hope that this section will become a collection
of multiple learning tools (for families to browse, see and
read about) to find a variety of new and inspiring ideas to
help their young child, teenager or grown child in many
different areas--from academics, to fine motor/large motor
skills, to sensory issues, to potty training--and anything
else that comes to mind.


Note: this new topic was inspired by Amanda, the mom of a child with ACC, at Blogging for Beau, where she shares some excellent ideas and fun "Learning Tools".