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Chapter 3
General Guidelines for
Learning Activities
This chapter describes some of the general guidelines parents have
found helpful when teaching their child new skills. Try using these
guidelines in addition to the specific instructions for each activity in
Chapters 5 through 8, and Chapters 10 and 11.
You are the expert about your child
No one knows your child and his abilities as well as you do. Listen to
your feelings and experiences about how your child is doing, even if they
are different from what a doctor, health worker, teacher or this book is
telling you. You can learn a lot from people who have experience with
children who have vision problems, but every child is different. You are
the expert about your child.
Let your child take the lead
Play is an important way for children to learn about the world. A child is
most eager to play when he is doing something he likes. So if your child
shows interest in an object, person, or activity, use his play to help him
learn new skills.
Letting your child take the lead helps him learn that his choices are
important and that he has some control over what happens. But it does
not mean that everything is unplanned. You need to think about the
skills your child needs to learn (see page 12), and the kinds of activities
and objects that can help him learn these skills. Then you can think of
ways to help him learn more while he is playing.
Will your toy
fit in this box,
Hector?
Now let’s
make the toy
fall out!
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