Teaching Reading To Children With Down Syndrome

Children with Down syndrome show an interesting ability to learn to read and understand a larger vocabulary of words at increasingly younger ages. Typically, by the age of three years old a child with Down syndrome is capable of learning to understand what is being read to them and to begin reading the words themselves. Keeping in mind that the language barriers that these children have are just that – language barriers and are not indicative of what the intellectual capabilities are for that child.

Recently, the ability to understand was proven. The children with Down syndrome were shown flashcards with word on them that they had never seen such as sleep and shut. When shown the flashcards, the children did not try to read the words but actually used a different word that means the same thing in the place of the original word. For example, for the word sleep the children said "go to bed" and for the word shut the children said "closed". This experiment won many years of funding in order to study this phenomenon in these children. Over the years, it has been shown that these children are capable of taking a word that they cannot read and decoding it for meaning and then replacing the word with the meaning or a new word that means the same thing.

It has been thought in recent years that children with Down syndrome were simply reading the words but were not understanding or comprehending what they were reading. This newest research proves that this is not the case and in actuality, they are capable of understanding a lot earlier than originally thought.

Reading can improve the intellectual capabilities of these children because many of them have impairments in hearing and sight. Reading the words themselves actually bypasses the two impaired senses and allows the child to learn in their own way. Researchers have begun to categorize Down syndrome children according to their reading age rather than their chronological age. The reading age is the age level at which they are able to read compared to their chronological age which is according to their date of birth. This is more indicative of the level of learning the child is at. Interestingly, though, many Down syndrome children have a reading age that is closer to their chronological age but their IQ does not reflect the age at which they are learning.

When teaching a child with Down syndrome to read, it is important to note that not all children will be ready or able to learn to read at the same age. While many are ready to learn reading at pre-school age, and learn quickly, there are others who are not ready to learn reading and to learn from reading until they are closer to their teen years. Today, there are many teen and adult people with Down syndrome who read for pleasure and enjoy reading but who were not ready to read until the age of eight or nine years or even after.

Recommended Reading

1. Speech And Language Treatments In Children With Down Syndrome - The primary concern when treating individual children with Down syndrome for their speech and language impairments is to identify the...
2. Education And Schooling For Children With Down Syndrome - Within recent years, it has become more commonplace for children with Down syndrome to be educated within the public school...
3. Resources For Parents Raising Down Syndrome Children - Throughout the time period a person is raising a child with Down syndrome, there will be a need for various...
4. Disability For Down Syndrome Children And Adults - Supplemental Security Income (SSI) is a benefit that is provided by the federal government for children under the age of...
5. Intelligence Issues Regarding Down Syndrome - Children with Down syndrome have below average intelligence. Many of these children are capable of learning to the point that...