How to teach Autistic child to read 2

In this post I will be speaking about how to teach your child to read. In particular, the more complicated grammatical rules of the English language.

This post will be level 2 of the how to teach your child to read series.

If you wish to look at how to teach your child to read at Level 1, please click on this link

A little bit of background information

I am an Autistic mother.

I have 2 children. One of whom is also Autistic.

And one of whom is not.

I use these techniques to teach each of my children how to read.

It is also the same technique that my sister used to teach her children how to read.

So this technique is tried and tested and works really well.

This method of teaching any child how to read, whether your child is Autistic or not will most likely have the most success.

Why you shouldn’t wait for school

I am a firm believer in teaching children at home.

But I am also a firm believer in making sure that children have plenty of social play.

Unfortunately, the best form of social play in my environment is through school.

So my children are attending school and kindergarten.

However.

I will still be part time homeschooling my children.

There will be things that the schools will teach my children at a later stage.

However, I have seen a lot of interest, in particular from my Autistic child in reading.

This of course led to start teaching my child how to read a little earlier than school would.

Which is fine!

It is also worth noting that children will learn at different paces.

Some will have the will and level of understanding to learn certain skills earlier than other. And waiting for school to teach them is not always ideal.

Because then there is a chance that the child does not reach their full potential.

Especially because the school system fits the whole class into one category. And their method of teaching might not be the most effective method for your kid.

If you want to do a little more research other than this post and my previous post for Level 1.

Then, a good book to read on this topic and for much more information is called, ‘Teaching Young Children with Autism, from Phonics to Fluency‘.

Now to get started.

Once your child has got the hang of the basic alphabet and how to read it.

As well as their phonics.

And your child can read basic words.

Especially 3 or 4 letter words.

Then this is the next step for you!

It is time to teach your child digraphs.

In simpler terms, a digraph is 2 letters of the alphabet, that when you put together, make one sound.

Digraphs are present with both vowels and consonant letters.

And each group has several different types.

I have to say that when I taught my child to read, I included the double letters in their Level 1 lesson.

This is because, I think it is easy for a child to learn that when 2 of the same letters of the alphabet come together, they sound the same still.

Of course these also come with exceptions such as the word ‘moon’, which will be read as ‘Moun’.

As opposed to the word ‘poor’ where the ‘o’ sounds exactly the same. No matter if it is spelt with a double letter ‘o’ or a single letter ‘o’.

But all languages have their exceptions and so those will come later.

Each time you come across a word with 2 of the same letters from the alphabet, you can point it out and say it out for your child.

That way, they can also understand the exceptions and learn to memorise them.

Vowel Digraphs:

Vowel digraphs, begin with a vowel letter from the alphabet, however do not have to end with one.

That means, if you combine a vowel first with a consonant, it will still be known as a vowel digraph.

As long as it makes one sounding letter.

It will be easier for you to teach your child the vowel digraphs first.

Because there are much fewer vowel letters in the English alphabet than there are consonants.

I might have missed a few but I have tried my best to include every single digraph in my lists.

If you see any that are missing, please let me know! I will then edit the post to include that also.

Vowel Digraphs and some examples include:

ai/ay

As in Rain or Paint.

Play or Say

au/aw

As in Automatic or Awesome

ea/ee,

Such as Plea or See

er,

For example, Perfect or Her or Person

ow/oe

As in, Know or Snow

And

Toe or Goes

ue/oo,

Due or Cue or Tuesday

Moon or Soon

oy/oi

Examples of this are: Oil and Oyster

Like in Fruits or Bruises

For example, Float or Toad

An example of this is, Lead or Read

As in They or Prey

Consonant Digraphs:

These are slightly different than their vowel counterparts.

A consonant digraph is when you see a word which includes 2 consonants (sometimes more), usually at the beginning of the word.

And when those two consonants combine, make a single phoneme.

A phoneme is basically how a word sounds.

Not how it is literally meant to be read out, in the form of the alphabet letters.

For example, when you combine g and n, to form the ‘gn’ sound, that sound becomes the letter ‘n’ and the ‘g’ becomes silent.

‘Gnome’, ‘knee’, ‘kneel’ are some examples of this.

Consonant digraphs include:

ch, (Sounds like a K)

Usually ‘ch’ turns into a K when it is in the beginning of the word or in the middle.

Not at the end of the word.

Examples of this include:

Chemise

Chemistry

dj,

Whenever you see any word with these two letters placed together, the ‘d’ becomes silent.

Like this:

Adjective

Adjust

gh,

These two letter, when put together only make a hard ‘g’ sound if it is at the start of a word.

Otherwise, usually ‘gh’ gets read out with the ‘f’ sound.

Or it is silent and not read out at all.

The hard ‘G’ sound examples:

Ghetto

Spaghetti

The ‘f’ sound examples usually are only pronounced this way if it comes after the ‘ou’ vowels:

Tough

Rough

Unpronounced ‘gh’

This one is the most common pronounciation.

No pronounciation at all.

Nothing.

If ‘gh’ is in a word which has ‘ou’, ‘au’, ‘ai’, ‘ei’ or ‘i’ in front of it then the ‘gh’ is not pronounced at all.

For example:

High

Caught

Neighbour

Straight

Another thing to keep in mind with words that have’gh’ in it is that it can be in a 2 syllable word.

We must be careful when G and H appear next to each other but function in two separate syllables.

When and if this happens, both the letters will be pronounced separately.

An example of this can be:

Doghouse

ng,

You will only always see this at the end of a word.

And usually only after a vowel letter.

There are many examples of this such as:

Sting

Bring

ph,

The combination of these two consonant letter produce the sound ‘f’.

Examples of this include:

Physics

Phonics

Phones etc.

However, if the ‘ph’ are in a two syllable word or longer and it makes out to be 2 separate words, in one word.

Then the p and the h must be pronounced separately.

For example:

Haphazard

Loophole

sh,

These two letters placed together will always produce the same sound.

It does not matter which part of the word they come in.

Whether it is in the beginning, middle or end.

For example

Shoulder

Shiny

Shoes

Ashen

ss,

I know above I mentioned that I taught my child the double letter sounds, in with, when I taught them the phonics of letters.

However, when there is a double appearance of ‘s’, it can change a little bit.

The ‘ss’ digraph tends to follow the same rule as the ‘sh’ digraph.

However, you will never find a double ‘s’ at the beginning of a word.

You will only find this in the middle of the word.

If the double ‘s’ is followeds by ion, ue or ure in a word, then it will change its pronounciation from being a simple ‘s’ sound to the ‘sh’ sound.

Examples include:

Sure

Issue

Emission

etc

th,

The digraph TH most often produces one of two similar but distinct sounds.

The ‘th’ sound can be made by very slightly pressing your tip of your tongue on the inside of the bottom of the middle of your two top middle teeth while breathing out air.

An example of this is:

Bath

Anytime, you see the ‘w’ leter combined with the ‘h’ letter, then the ‘h’ becomes silent.

It becomes only the ‘w’ which is pronounced.

The infamous ‘wh’ digraphs include

Who

What

Where

When

Why

Disclaimer

These things take time to learn so be patient with your child when you embark on this journey in trying to teach them the digraph grammar rules.

Also, take it one digraph at a time if you want.

And I wish you the best 🙂

Enjoy