Up for reading

Of late, my little AngelicA seems to have made the connect between books and reading. I just have to say or sign read and she makes a dash to perch herself on my lap and then she waits for me to start reading. Sometimes she pulls out her books from the shelf, picks one of them up and then reads - turning the pages and mumbling to herself. It is such a cute sight.

Part of her interest probably stems from the fact that her sister loves books and enjoys being read to. Elle was into books from a very young age and at one point she would only eat if I would read to her while I was feeding her. Her favorites are Spot, a couple of the Fisher Price early reader books and some Enid Blytons. And Angel has always been a part of all the reading that we would do with Elle.

I guess this is something that all parents do. And now there is increasing evidence that for kids with Down Syndrome, the benefits of reading are significant enough to warrant concerted efforts to build this essential skill.

I recently came across this interesting article - Teaching reading skills to children with Down Syndrome on Up-for-Reading.org - which has some interesting ideas on how to teach our kids to read. Here's what the article says on the benefits of teaching them reading:

Reading will help children with Down syndrome to develop vocabulary and grammar knowledge and will give added practice, and therefore improve spoken language skills. Reading practice will also help to develop working memory skills. The ability to read and write facilitates easier access to general knowledge and the school curriculum and it supports the skills necessary for problem solving and thinking strategies.

There is also evidence for the beneficial effect of reading on speech and language skills. Case study records suggest that early reading activities encourage progress to longer utterances and improved grammar in speech. They also suggest that reading improves articulation and speech intelligibility (the ability to be understood by the listener).

Picture source: Up-for-reading.org

Reading also helps in social development. The best part about reading is that it is fun. In one of my earlier posts (find it here)I had mentioned some of the stuff we were doing to support Angel's language development through early reading along with some ideas and links to resources for early reading.

I cannot emphasize enough how much of difference our efforts have made. Earlier today, I was reading one of Angel's books to her, I pointed to the word 'eat' and asked her "What's this?" And she signed eat, putting her little fingers to her mouth. It was the best thing that happened today - our little Eureka moment :)

Thanks for reading,
JD