Teaching emergent literacy skills in English to a child with Down syndrome whose home language is Armenian

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 39-42)Children with Down syndrome learn differently that their typically developing peers. These learning differences create challenges for meeting the required educational standards of achievements throughout the academic life of the student. Differences in learning are apparent as early as preschool, in the emergent literacy skills of pre-reading, and in kindergarten when pre-reading acquisition and literacy comprehension are educational standard expectations. Teaching reading to children with Down syndrome poses challenges in that the skill acquisition stages of children with Down syndrome do not align with the prescribed teaching practices for typically developing children. The No Child Left Behind (N CLB) act of 200 1 mandates that all children be taught reading skills, using evidence-based approaches that include phonological awareness and literacy comprehension. Children with Down syndrome present learning differences from typically developing peers, and commonly fail to respond to comprehension and phonologically based reading strategies, especially in the primary grades. This case study is the result of one year of field research (2010-2011) under the Culture in Early Childhood Special Education Project at California State University, Northridge. The study examined a functional language experience approach designed within the zone of proximal development of a particular child [focus child] with Down syndrome, in the naturalistic setting of the focus child's home to introduce emergent literacy and pre-reading activities to scaffold the focus child's level of abilities prior to the second year of preschool. The intervention was designed with the intention of encouraging an interest in literacy at the emergent level, and in preparation for prereading instruction scheduled to take place in the preschool classroom the following school year. Data was collected during each session, on three areas of ability, (visual attention, oral response, and physical attention), to determine emergent literacy interest and pre-reading skills development. Results indicate that the focus child showed an increased ability to attend to the lessons in all three areas over the period of three weeks of intervention in the naturalistic setting of the home when distractions were limited and when accommodations were made for the focus child's needs. Evidence of distractibility was found to reduce the focus child's ability to attend to the lesson materials being presented, causing a sharp decrease in the numbers of successful responses in all three areas of opportunities. This case study suggests the importance of recognizing the different learning styles of children with Down syndrome, while teaching within the individual student's zone of proximal development. The study also found that the focus child's level of distractibility played a significant role in how many times responses could be recorded when opportunities were made available to demonstrate attention