Finding out what child knows/Progress diary

[Sonshine]

    Hi!  My son Justin (6) and I are brand new to the Little Reader Program.    Born with Down syndrome, his language, actions, and reasoning are similar to that of a 3 or 3 1/2 year old. I believe Little Reader will be a good program to teach him to read, because of his short attention span, his propensity to get distracted, his difficulty with storing, retrieving, and inter-relating information, yet his good visual memory. He loves videos and computers. I'm excited about the editing features and have already begun to do a little inputting of close-up, cropped pictures of family members for the body parts - head section.  Such fun! 
    Question: How do those of you with toddlers/preschoolers go about finding out what your child knows?  I mistakenly thought the Little Reader Delux kit would include flashcards.   But, now I find that I have to make my own. I'd already done the Color card set and the Animals 1 set, prior to ordering the Little Reader program.  Now, I'm working on making flashcards for the body parts and action words in the first 2 or 3 lessons, as well as additional animal name cards that are in the Little Reader program but were not in the set I already downloaded.  To ensure their longevity, the cards need to be laminated.  I don't have access to a laminating machine, so I do it by hand with clear contact paper.  Not much fun for a perfectionist who is bothered by wrinkles!      And if I do a new lesson each day, I will be constantly needing to make new flashcards.  Also, Justin needs a variety of approaches. If I "test" him every day with flashcards, he becomes resistant and uncooperative.  How can I practice the words and "test" him in less direct ways and varied ways, so that it will seem a fun game to him, rather than an interrogation by the Gestapo Mom? 
    Qestion 2: the Progress Diary of the Little Reader Program?  I don't know what I should write/record there.  Do other moms use it?  What kind of things do you make note of there?  Thanks!  Justin's Mom

[MummyRoo]

The honest answer would be I have no idea what my son knows! The only definite benefit I've seen from LR so far is that he can do the sounds for all the animals

My son is not-quite 2 and won't be tested. If he's in the right mood, he might answer if asked where his eyes/ear/neck etc. are - more often than not he will ignore you, then come up ten minutes later pointing and saying 'mummy leg' .If I show him two flashcards, he chooses both at the same time. Every time. I know he is learning something I just can't be sure what.

So far, LR has seemed to increase spoken vocabulary and word/object recognition more than reading skills (that I can see results of, at least) but we are enjoying it and I expect to be surprised one day

LR shows only three sets of 10 cards every ten days, so it is not so much laminating as you might think - if you are showing the same sets on cards as on the program. I would recommend getting a cheap laminator - I really don't know what I'd do without mine, you can get them quite cheap on Amazon - mine was one of the cheapest there and yet is working well despite months of abuse!

I have never really looked at the progress diary - I suppose you can note specific achievements, extra cards on the played topics that you want to make, but I have a desk covered in notebooks and scraps of paper for that

[Sonshine]

Well, it does help to formulate a specific question to post on the forum, even if it is only to focus my mind on finding my own solution! 
Today, I started over with Day 1 Lessons, because I want to see what Justin has learned, after 2 weeks of alternating between Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3 lessons. 
We did the Word Flash, as usual, and I reminded him that it is really fast, so he has to say the words fast.
Then, for the Multisensory lesson, I turned the sound all the way down so there was no audio, and waited for him to say the word on the screen, after which I clicked to the picture and then to the video clip.
He read every word in every catagory (except one)!!!     And no resistance whatsoever!  YEAH! 
The only word he didn't read correctly was "chin"  (he said "chicken")     I turned the sound back up for the Picture Flash lesson. 
Then, we went right on with Session 2, again turning the sound all the way down for the Multisensory lesson.
Once again, he read every word except one!   
Only this time, after misreading "chin" as "hair" (because of the h?), when I put the mouse cursor under the ch and said the sound /ch/, he then said "chin."
No need to do the printed out flashcards, today!     Justin's Mom

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