Research background

1. Phonological awareness and ‘silent-reading’: The benefits of intervention and early intervention in reading for children who have Down syndrome.Kathy Cologon.Institute of Early Childhood, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.kcologon@tpg.com.au

2. Research background • Expectations, opportunities and outcomes • Life for a person who has Down syndrome in Australia – 1950 to today. • What has changed? • What has remained the same? • The question that arises… • Implications for researchers, educators and policy makers. • Implications for this research.

3. The importance of literacy • Communication • Social practices • Education • Implications for inclusive practices.

4. The importance of reading • Reading is a vital aspect of literacy development. • The importance of reading for all • The potential additional importance of reading for communication for children who have Down syndrome. • Implications for this research.

5. Phonological awareness • What is phonological awareness? • Why is it important for literacy development?

6. Phonological awareness and children who have Down syndrome. • What is known about phonological awareness in children who have Down syndrome? • Implications of phonological awareness for reading development in relation to models of reading mastery. • Implications for educational opportunities. • Possible limitations that need further investigation. • Implications for this research.

7. Reading comprehension • What is reading comprehension? • Why is reading comprehension important for literacy development?

8. Reading comprehension and children who have Down syndrome. • What is known about the reading comprehension of children who have Down syndrome? • Implications for communication and reading development. • Implications for educational opportunities. • Possible limitations that need further investigation • Implications for this research.

9. Research Aims • This research aims to provide further empirical research evidence examining reading development in children who have Down syndrome with implications for inclusive educational practices. • Specific research focuses: • The benefits of intervention and early intervention on the reading development of children who have Down syndrome. • Phonological awareness. • Reading comprehension. • The implications of reducing oral language demands of reading tasks.

10. Research Hypotheses • Instruction in phonological awareness will facilitate phonological awareness development. • Reducing the oral language demands of reading tasks will facilitate improved reading comprehension. • Reading instruction, particularly instruction focused on phonological awareness development, will facilitate improved phonological output. • Early intervention will be beneficial for reading development. • School-age intervention will also be effective for reading development.

11. Methodology • Experimental case studies • Sample • Basic research design • Initial assessment • Control period • Pretest • Intervention • Posttest • Maintenance posttest

12. Assessment tasks • PPVT-III (Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, Dunn & Dunn, 1981) • STAP (South Tyneside Assessment of Phonology, Armstrong & Ainley, 1992) • Digit span (Cupples & Iacono, 2000) • Woodcock Reading Mastery Subtests (Woodcock, 1987): • Word Identification • Word Attack • Passage Comprehension

13. Assessment tasks continued… • Word blending (Cupples, Iacono & Law, 2003) • Non-word blending (Cupples & Iacono, 2000) • Word segmentation (Cupples & Iacono, 2000) • Non-word segmentation (Cupples & Iacono, 2000) • Letter-sound production (Cupples, Iacono & Law, 2003) • Letter-sound recognition (Cupples, Iacono & Law, 2003)

14. Assessment tasks continued… • TACL (Test of Auditory Comprehension of Language, Carrow-Woolfolk 1985) • RCPM (Coloured Progressive Matrices, Raven, Court & Raven, 1995) • Word span • Word comprehension • Training word probe • Generalisation word probe

15. Intervention • Intervention groups • Phonological awareness intervention group • Silent-reading intervention group • Training and Generalisation word probes. • Sample distribution • Age groups

16. Phonological awareness intervention Intervention steps: 1. Oral reading of training words. 2. Oral word reading and picture match (choice of two pictures). 3. Oral blending of an onset and rime presented orally only and choose the corresponding picture (choice of three pictures). 4. Individual phoneme blending (plastic letters) orally and visually, followed by picture match (choice of three pictures). 5. Ask the participant to orally blend individual phonemes (without plastic letters), make a picture match and put the picture in the box (Choice of three pictures). 6. Sentence completion (oral reading, three words to choose from, no picture). 7. Oral reading of training words.

17. Silent-reading intervention Intervention steps: 1. Silent reading of training words. 2. Silent word reading and picture match (choice of two pictures). 3. Silent reading of a short sentence then picture matching (choice of three pictures). 4. Action task 1: Silent reading of a target word, then place picture match in a box (choice of three pictures). 5. Action task 2: Silent reading of an action sentence and completion of the action (put the picture in the box/bag/hat) with the correct choice of picture (three possible pictures to choose from). 6. Sentence completion (silent reading, three words to choose from, no picture). 7. Oral reading of training words.

18. Results • All participants in the study showed improvements in reading ability at the conclusion of the intervention. The comparison between pre and posttest scores for each participant on training and generalisation word probes.

19. Results for the intervention groups Bars paired by colour. Pretest mean score followed by posttest mean score: Generalisation word probe Letter-sound production Letter-sound recognition Non-word blending Non-word segmentation Passage comprehension Training word probe Word attack Word blending Word comprehension Word identification Word segmentation

20. At the conclusion of the study all participants in both the phonological awareness and the silent-reading intervention groups showed improvement on all assessment tasks.As indicated in the table on the following slide, a comparison of posttest mean scores for measures of phonological awareness are higher for the phonological awareness intervention group, while mean scores for measures of reading comprehension as well as measures of single real-word reading are higher for the silent-reading intervention group.These results are consistent with the research hypotheses.

21. Intervention group mean score comparison.

22. Results for the age groups Bars paired by colour. Pretest mean score followed by posttest mean score: Generalisation word probe Letter-sound production Letter-sound recognition Non-word blending Non-word segmentation Passage comprehension Training word probe Word attack Word blending Word comprehension Word identification Word segmentation

23. As can be seen in the table below, overall mean scores for posttests for both interventions are consistently higher in the 7-12 age group than in the 3-6 age group.

24. Implications of results for phonological awareness intervention group • Hypothesis testing • Implications for educational practices • Implications for further research

25. Implications of results for silent-reading intervention group • Hypothesis testing • Implications for educational practices • Implications for further research

26. Implications of results for the 3-6 age group • Given the successful progress made by participants in the 3-6 age group the possible benefits of early intervention in reading for children who have Down syndrome needs to be explored further in the areas of: • Phonological awareness • Implications of study and potential benefit for later reading development. • Reading comprehension • Implications of study and potential benefit for later reading development. • Oral language development • Implications of study and potential benefit for later language development.

27. Implications of results for the 7-12 age group • Plateau's and glass ceilings… • Possible benefits of school-age intervention in reading for children who have Down syndrome. • Phonological awareness • Reading comprehension • Oral language development

28. Implications of phonological output scores • Change in phonological output scores • The relationship between phonological output scores and reading improvement • Implications for the relationship between reading and oral language development for children who have Down syndrome • The relationship between phonological output and phonological awareness scores • Implications for reading instruction

29. Further discussion • Intervention comparisons • Age group comparisons • Towards inclusion – implications for educational opportunities and policy • The importance of phonological awareness and reading comprehension for all. • Implications for further research

30. Conclusions • Early intervention and school-age intervention’s were found to be successful in facilitating reading development in this study. • The results of this study suggest that children who have Down syndrome can demonstrate phonological awareness and greater decoding skills after participating in phonological awareness instruction.

31. The results of this study suggest that reducing the oral language demands of reading tasks may facilitate reading comprehension for some children who have Down syndrome. • The results of the silent-reading intervention group also demonstrate that children who have Down syndrome demonstrate improved reading comprehension after engaging in reading comprehension tasks. • The results of this study provide support to the suggestion that reading development aids oral language development for children who have Down syndrome.