1.
Our son loves soccer and sports, so we used this to his benefit.
We got him his own subscriptions to junior and adult soccer magazines, Sports Illustrated, wrestling magazines and books on soccer for youths and teens.
Larry loved these magazines and books, and reading became fun.
This helped to improve his reading skills.
We started doing this when Larry was 10 years old.
I wished we had started much earlier.
2.
Here is what help the most with Larry's reading and it was a total surprise to me.
When Larry was in high school, he had a Deaf teacher for English and Literature, the communication and teaching using American Sign Language in these classes reached him and like magic Larry crossed the reading bridge and his reading skills just started to accelerate.
3.
If you Deaf child is struggling with reading and writing, I would request 1 on 1 tutoring with a Deaf teacher/tutor.
You can make this request via your child's school, teachers and IEP or you can hire a private tutor.
4.
If your child loves sports, or another activity, you can ask his or her coach to encourage them in reading and writing, many times children listen to their coaches about academics.
5.
Here is a big tip, as soon as you find out your child is deaf, start learning signs and sign to your baby as you would talk to your hearing baby.
Also sign stories to your deaf baby as you would to your hearing baby.
This will enable your deaf baby to have language development at normal levels.
In our case, we did not find out that Larry was deaf until he was 1 year old and our sign language classes did not start until he was 4 years old.
Larry's real language development only started when he started school at Kendall Demonstration School at age 4.
Your local school for the Deaf and organizations for the Deaf will be able to assist you with learning signs and even send someone to you home to teach you.
Larry's wife Amrit worked part time for Massachusetts State Association of the Deaf Family Sign Language Program, she went to hearing parents' house one hour every week for 10 weeks to teach sign language.
6.
We always had closed caption on for TV programs.