Page 136 - Routines-Based Early Intervention Guidebook

Routines-Based Early Intervention Guidebook

Teaching Imitation Skills 10.4

movements create cues which at their essence are complex mul ‐step rou nes.

You can slow a song down or teach it in segments un l a child is able to follow along

on their own.

3. Board Games – With the advent of new technologies, physical games with real
boards and moveable pieces are becoming increasingly rare. Games are repe ous

by their very nature and players tend to do the same thing over‐and‐over each turn.

Once they learn the rules, children o en play games independently. This has the

added benefit of freeing up your schedule and rewarding their independence.
4. Book Reading – Repe on is skillfully used in the development of books for young

children to maintain their interest, support their developing fluency, and teach

academic concepts. Books are best described when looking at them through the

eyes of the children who are reading them.
Toddlers – Book‐reading with very young children would be more appropriately

called book‐explora on. They turn the book backwards and forwards, up and

down, swim through mul ple pages, or spend an infinity on one image. Young

children are as cap vated by the experience as they are by the content. This
explora on helps them understand what everything is and understand what the

rela on is between all of the objects present. Part of the reason for young

children reques ng that the same book be read over‐and‐over is because they

are developing a sense of expecta on and it thrills them to be able to predict
what is coming next. Join your child in this explora on. Imitate the characters,

sounds that things in the picture would make, and try to drop any preconceived

no ons about what “book‐reading” looks like at this age.

Preschool Children – Preschoolers reading books depend heavily on the repe ous
nature of this genre of books. The very best rhymes have repeated images and

phrases, and repeat one main word on each page. For example, Brown Bear –

Brown Bear is repeated on every page of Eric Carle’s classic while the animals
that the bear sees change by name, color, and image. The repe ve nature of

these books acts as scaffolding that allows the preschooler to access more

Copyright © 2014 Bilinguis cs, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
128