Experience Reader


Purpose: To reinforce the match between vision and the speech-auditory in the reading process using the patient’s own speech vocabulary

Materials: Dictated stories in the patient’s own words.


1. Have the client (your child) dictate to you in his own words short sentence accounts of his day. This is best done when he comes in from school or before supper. If possible, type it out for him. If a computer or typewriter is not available, you could try printing it out by hand. This can sometimes be good modeling behaviour if you do this in front of the client. Be sure to keep an age-appropriate dictionary and thesaurus near-by and use them frequently.

2. Have him read it back to you immediately while it is fresh in his mind. Help him with the words he stumbles on. Discuss the words and the event or item being described so that his concept of the words is complete.

3. Put his story into a notebook and lay it away until evening. Have him read it again before going home (or to bed).

4. Repeat this activity each day (or as directed), adding each new page to the notebook. Use the dictionary and thesaurus to build a more descriptive vocabulary. Have the child reread and review previously written pages, and urge him to increase the length of his stories as his vocabulary and word recognition skills increase. Help him to increase his accuracy of word usage as his skills increase, but do not be too demanding until after he finds out that this activity can be fun as well as instructive. It is not unreasonable to ask a child to write a full page on the events of his day.

5. As the stories increase in length, decrease the number of pages for review. When the stories become more complete and your child becomes more fluent in his account, encourage him to start writing part of the story himself. This can be done by having him write some of the sentences or leave space for him to fill with words he is capable of writing.

6. As the child gains facility in writing, utilize a chalkboard/whiteboard as much as possible for word practice. The skills of full arm movements developed will become apparent in your child’s writing on the page.


1. Gradually encourage elaboration of his stories and the building of vocabulary.

2. Always work at levels comfortable to the child, but encourage them to push forward.

2. Gradually encourage patient to write some or all of his stories by himself.

3. Gradually help patient to improve the accuracy of word usage.

4. Do not try to force any of the above.

Note: Avoid doing this daily as it can become forced, and tedious. Perhaps weekly is more appropriate. All therapeutic tasks should be approached as games and should never be forced as a chore. However, if the child truly enjoys this activity, go with it and encourage to write it out themselves to the best of their ability.



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