THERAPEUTIC EXPERIENCE

Student Name: Alysha Buikema Date: March 2, 2017

Purpose: In dialogue with the special education teacher, it was noted that the
Reason for developing therapeutic experience. This student has difficulty decoding words and particularly struggles with two
could be in response to an observation, discussion letter blends. More specifically, he has difficulty pronouncing the th
with the site supervisor, etc. sound and substitutes wa for the wh sound. It has been observed that
when he is reading books at his level he pauses or skips over words such as
Observation
where and what. When asked to sound out words that begin with a
- Document what you saw and heard
- Document non-verbal communication (i.e., body blend he persists in sounding out each individual letter. As a result, he
language, facial expressions and voice tone) loses the meaning of what he is reading because he is so focused on
- Document in detail: who, what, where, and when sounding out each specific letter.
- Documentation should be written in past tense,
objective, and in anecdotal format
OR
Discussion
Document the discussion between you and your site
supervisor that led to the planning

Therapeutic Experience To support him in learning to identify and pronounce blends in words, a board
What are you planning in response to your purpose? game with pictures of objects that begin with a blend will be created. He will
- Label your experience (e.g. Painting with cars). be required to identify the blend and match it to the appropriate picture.
- What are your 3 therapeutic objectives? (e.g. Sense
This will help him to differentiate between different blends and to practice
of normalcy, control, independence, etc)
the pronunciation and spelling of each.
Describe the experience:
- Who will be involved in the experience?

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- Where will the experience take place?
- List the materials and resources you will use
- Describe the implementation of the experience,
with a step by step description
- Describe any precautions you needed to take with
the activity, or any restrictions that existed,
effecting the child(ren)s ability to complete the
task (Precaution e.g. Child has a type of blood
cancer, so he/she has to be careful not to get a cut;
Restriction e.g. Child has an IV in his/her dominant
hand, limiting use of the hand)
Therapeutic Objectives:
1. He will gain a sense of control as he becomes more confident in
transferring the skill of identifying blends to his reading.
2. He will achieve a sense of accomplishment as he becomes more
competent in matching the blends to its corresponding picture.
3. He will develop as sense of normalcy as he becomes more fluent in
identifying the words and relies less on sounding each word out.
Materials:
Digraph board game
1 Large die
2 Game markers
Implementation:
1. I will set out the materials on a table in the Special Education
Resource Centre.
2. I will invite the student to join me at the table to practice identifying
words with blends.
3. The student is encouraged to roll the die.
4. Using the legend on the board game, he will identify the appropriate
blend and match it to a picture on the board game.
5. While he is locating the appropriate picture, I will ask him questions
such as:
a. What sound do you hear at the beginning of this word?
b. What two letters make up this sound?
c. Can you think of another word that begins with this sound?
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 6. Once the blend is matched with the closest picture, a game marker is
placed on top of it.
7. The process is repeated until one player reaches the end of the game
board.

Precautions and Restrictions

It is important to provide positive feedback so that he feels increasingly

confident. The game should proceed at a pace in which he is comfortable.
He is hesitant to engage in learning tasks that are not easily visible and
prefers to continue with familiar activities. Therefore, I need to be cautious
when selecting materials for the activity and when encouraging him to
participate. I want to ensure that the game pieces are large enough so that
he feels comfortable enough to accurately identify the pictures and printed
letters.

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