Max

A Sensory Explorer

Max rarely sits still and shows little interest in traditional literacy activities. Yet he demonstrates a clear love of stories, songs, and print in his own way - through movement, repetition, and sensory exploration. He engages with familiar stories, requests songs non-verbally, explores books physically, and mark makes in unconventional ways.

Max hates to be still. He will not sit down for any group inputs. One–to-one inputs last five minutes at best. He does not show any interest in letters, he shows little interest in picture books within the classroom, his interest in Phase 1 phonics is fleeting. He is far too busy for all of that nonsense!

To anyone doing a 1 hour observation they would say he has no interest in literacy at all and we are not meeting his literacy needs. Watch him for a bit longer, however, and you will see that he loves literacy. He gets exceedingly excited and animated whenever we watch a Julia Donaldson story on the big screen or a musical version of The Gingerbread Man, showing different levels of energy for each story which varies throughout, in tandem with the characters or events happening on screen. He has favourite nursery rhymes and Christmas songs, which he communicates with us effectively using photo communication boards or hand leading. Sometimes requesting the same song over and over. He loves to sit on the floor with no shoes on and flick through catalogues (held the correct way up and flicking the pages from front to back). He points to symbols to request his favourite things and uses BigMac talking buttons for the same end. He likes to mark make by using a pencil to stab and scrape into playdough. He loves to mark make with dry wipe pens on the windows. For this little boy literacy is something which he explores with all of his senses. For him, literacy is a full sensory experience and he very much is interested in literacy.