Training reading and phoneme awareness skills in children with Down syndrome

TY - JOUR

T1 - Training reading and phoneme awareness skills in children with Down syndrome

AU - Goetz, Kristina

AU - Hulme, Charles

AU - Brigstocke, Sophie

AU - Carroll, Julia M.

AU - Nasir, Louise

AU - Snowling, M.

PY - 2008/6

Y1 - 2008/6

N2 - The authors report a short-term reading intervention study involving 15 children with Down syndrome (DS) who attended mainstream schools. The intervention programme taught children phoneme segmentation and blending skills in the context of learning letter-sounds and working with words in books. The children were taught by their learning support assistants, who received special training for this purpose. Compared to a waiting group, a group of eight children with DS improved significantly on measures of early literacy skills (letter-sound knowledge, Early Word Recognition) following eight weeks of intervention. The waiting group started to make progress once they received the intervention. Both groups maintained progress on the literacy measures five months after the intervention had finished. The results suggest that children with DS can benefit from structured, phonics-based reading intervention.

AB - The authors report a short-term reading intervention study involving 15 children with Down syndrome (DS) who attended mainstream schools. The intervention programme taught children phoneme segmentation and blending skills in the context of learning letter-sounds and working with words in books. The children were taught by their learning support assistants, who received special training for this purpose. Compared to a waiting group, a group of eight children with DS improved significantly on measures of early literacy skills (letter-sound knowledge, Early Word Recognition) following eight weeks of intervention. The waiting group started to make progress once they received the intervention. Both groups maintained progress on the literacy measures five months after the intervention had finished. The results suggest that children with DS can benefit from structured, phonics-based reading intervention.

KW - Down syndrome

KW - learning support assistants

KW - phonics

KW - reading intervention

KW - MENTALLY-RETARDED CHILDREN

KW - PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS

KW - YOUNG-CHILDREN

KW - INSTRUCTION

KW - LITERACY

KW - PROGRAM

KW - INTERVENTION

KW - RETARDATION

KW - DYSLEXIA

KW - EFFICACY

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=43049123436&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/s11145-007-9089-3

DO - 10.1007/s11145-007-9089-3

M3 - Article

VL - 21

SP - 395

EP - 412

JO - READING AND WRITING

JF - READING AND WRITING

SN - 0922-4777

IS - 4

ER -