SENDinMama

🌍 August’s SENDinMama Book List is now live: Wild Weather, Changing World

I chose this month’s theme because my own children have been asking innumerable questions about what they are seeing around them at the moment.

Heatwaves. Wildfires. Storms. Flooding.

For children who notice patterns intensely, have a strong sense of justice or need certainty to feel safe, these things can prompt some pretty enormous questions about what is happening to our planet.

And I don’t think the answer is to tell them not to worry.

Instead, we can give them information they can understand, help them make sense of what they’re seeing and remind them that there are adults, scientists, communities and organisations working on these problems too. The future of the planet does not need to sit on a child’s shoulders.

So I’ve put together a collection of books for children from toddlers right through to teens exploring weather, extreme weather, climate change, our planet and the people working to protect it.

Some are beautiful stories. Some are proper fact-filled books for the children who need to know EXACTLY how everything works. (You know the ones. 😂)

🔒 The full list is available now for paid SENDinMama Substack subscribers: https://sendinmama.substack.com/p/big-feelings-little-books-268?utm_source=app-post-stats-page&r=3z1gi4&utm_medium=ios

Paid subscription is £3.50 per month and also includes a downloadable resource every month and my full-length SEND and PDA articles.

I hope this one helps with a few of those very big questions. 🌦️

SENDinMama 🤍

Part Two of my series on helping PDA children learn to read at home is now live!

In Part One, I explored the foundations that come before formal phonics. This time, I’m sharing exactly where I begin: the first sounds I introduce, how I offer meaningful choice, the playful ways we notice phonics in everyday life and how I make progress visible without turning learning into a test.

I’ve also written honestly about:

💛 Adapting systematic phonics without losing its structure
💛 Supporting children with contrasting PDA presentations
💛 My eldest son’s hyperlexia and why his rapid progress should not become another child’s benchmark
💛 The Pokémon-card arrangement that transformed reading practice in our family
💛 Finding what makes reading meaningful enough for an individual child to return to

This is not about recreating school at home or making children comply with phonics lessons. It is about making the process of becoming a reader accurate, accessible and emotionally safe.

You can read the article here:

https://open.substack.com/pub/sendinmama/p/part-2-phonics-without-the-pressure?r=3z1gi4&utm_medium=ios

I would love to hear what has helped your child develop an interest in letters, words or reading.

With Love,
SENDinMama 🤍

I’m looking to speak to parents or carers who are currently educating a PDA child aged approximately 7–13 at home.

I’m particularly interested in an example of something your child understood or could do but found difficult to demonstrate under pressure, and what changed when the demands surrounding their learning were reduced. I would love to know about how this affected your understanding of your own role in their learning.

This is for a sample chapter I’m preparing for Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Any contribution could be anonymised, and I would send you the adapted passage for approval before using it.

If you would be willing to send me a short written response by commenting on this post or sending me a message by 4 August, I would be overcome with gratitude!

There is absolutely no obligation for anything you share to be included.

With Love,

SENDinMama 🤍
www.SENDinMama.com

“I’ve bought the phonics cards… but I don’t actually know what to do with them.”

Over the last few weeks, I’ve had almost exactly the same conversation with several home educating parents of PDA children.

They desperately want to help their child learn to read, but nobody has ever taught them where to begin.

As a teacher, I spent nine years teaching children to read and running workshops for parents. Every September I’d ask a room full of intelligent, capable adults to point to a split digraph or explain what a CVC word was.

Almost nobody could.

Not because they weren’t clever.

Because nobody had ever shown them.

That inspired this article.

It’s about far more than phonics. It’s about protecting your child’s relationship with reading, understanding why PDA changes the way we approach learning and helping parents feel confident enough to know where to begin.

📖Read it here: https://open.substack.com/pub/sendinmama/p/helping-your-pda-child-fall-in-love?utm_source=app-post-stats-page&r=3z1gi4&utm_medium=ios

I’d love to know… what’s your biggest worry about supporting your child with reading?

With Love,
SENDinMama 🤍

Sometimes I feel guilty for my third born son.

Not because I wish he had a PDA profile too. Far from it.

But because at just two years old he is already navigating so much. Autism. Global developmental delay. Speech and language delay. Suspected ADHD. The world already asks a lot of him.

And on top of that, he is growing up alongside two older brothers with completely different PDA presentations. One externalises. One internalises. As well as his baby brother. Learning how to be a brother in our family is… complicated.

There are days when I wonder if it’s fair that he has to wait while I de-escalate a situation, change plans at the last minute, or adapt what we’re doing to keep everyone feeling safe.

Then I remember something someone told me years ago:

“If you want to know how to treat someone with a disability, look at their sibling.”

The more I think about it, the more I believe it’s true.

Siblings often grow up understanding that behaviour is communication. They learn flexibility, empathy and acceptance in ways that can’t really be taught. They notice when someone needs space. They celebrate differences because differences are simply normal in their home.

That doesn’t mean it’s always easy. Siblings need support too. They deserve time that belongs just to them, space to express difficult feelings, and reassurance that their needs matter every bit as much.

But when I watch him instinctively adapt to his brothers, include them, comfort them and accept them exactly as they are, I realise he isn’t just learning to live alongside disability.

He’s learning what genuine compassion looks like.

And perhaps that’s one of the greatest gifts siblings can give each other.

💛 Do you have siblings in your family? I’d love to hear what they’ve taught one another and what the dynamics are like.

With Love,
SENDinMama 🤍