How does a person learn to read without talking???

How does a person learn to read without talking???  Be honest, when you heard Cicily could read, you asked yourself this question, but were too afraid to ask.  (By the way, you can always ask, I much prefer it.)  This is definitely what I wondered when Cicily was mastering her preschool letters and looking forward to the next step of reading.  So I thought I would explain some of the techniques Cicily's teachers use to know what she's reading and help her learn more.  

 These pictures are of Cicily reading in Speech Therapy.  Cicily's therapist read a story with her and then wrote out two questions for her to answer.  Her therapist just held up the answers without reading them and Cicily pointed to the correct answer without fail.

Her SpEd teacher has cards and a toy duck.  The cards say things like, "put the duck on top of the cup."  Cicily reads the card on her own and then demonstrates that she read the card by putting the duck on the cup.


Cicily's K-1st grade SpEd teacher now teaches reading resource in her school.  So, Cicily gets to go to resource with her and her 4th grade reading group.  They've recently been focussing on prefixes and suffixes.  Cicily's nurse says Cicily can determine if a word has a prefix or suffix with complete accuracy.  Cicily also gets to bring home books from this group that focus on different letter blends. She loves reading them with me and Sophie!  And, she brings home words on flashcards.  We hold up two words such as "about" and "around" and ask Cicily, "which word is about".  She'll point to "about" without fail, unless she's in a silly mood, then she'll point to all the wrong words in a row!  To combat the silly moods, we've had her "teaching" Sophie the words.  Cicily has to point to the right words so she can teach them to Sophie.  Now we get pretty much 100% accuracy from Cicily and learning for Sophie.  :)


Cicily also continues to make sentences from word cards that she reads and organizes into sentences and make sentences on her iPad from words she reads.


I continue to be amazed at how dedicated her teachers and nurse are at helping Cicily learn new things.  Cicily LOVES learning.  It's something she can do and do very well.  And I love that she has amazing people who make it possible.