Visions for literacy: parents aspirations for

reading in children with Down syndrome

Leila Ricci and Anna Osipova
Although children with Down syndrome (DS) can
learn to read, few studies have explored parental
perspectives on the reading development of this
group of children. This article, written by Leila Ricci
and Anna Osipova, from California State University,
explores visions and expectations regarding
reading held by parents of children with Down syn-
drome in the US. Parents of 50 children with DS
(aged three to 13 years) completed a survey about
their childrens interest in reading and responded to
open-ended questions inquiring about their views
on their childrens reading development. A majority
of parents in this study described their childrens
positive attitude toward reading, stated their
reading-related goals for their children, dened
their childrens relative strengths in reading, and
shared strategies used in the home to promote lit-
eracy in this population. Parents pay close attention
to and have high expectations for their childrens
reading achievement, and thereby would benet
from partnerships with informed educators willing
and capable of teaching reading to children with
DS.
Key words: reading, literacy, parental perspectives,
Down syndrome.
Reading is a foundational skill, serving as a gateway to the
rest of a childs formal education (American Federation of
Teachers, 2008). It is no wonder then that our nation places
a high priority on reading through such legislation as No
Child Left Behind (2001), requiring that every American
child learn to read by the end of third grade. Children with
Down syndrome (DS), along with other children with dis-
abilities, are included in these national efforts. Earlier
studies have shown that parents of children with DS seem
attuned to their childrens cognitive and linguistic charac-
teristics, often advocating for appropriate speech and
reading interventions for these students (Fidler, Hodapp &
Dykens, 2002; Fidler, Lawson & Hodapp, 2003). This effort
appears worthwhile since individuals with DS can attain
functional levels of literacy and achieve better than expected
performance in reading (Byrne, Buckley, MacDonald &
Bird, 1995; Byrne, MacDonald & Buckley, 2002; Laws,
Buckley, Bird, MacDonald & Broadley, 1995). Since few
studies have focused on parental perspectives related to lit-
eracy in this population, the present study explores parents
perceptions and visions for the reading development of their
children with DS.
Why are parents expectations of and visions for childrens
reading important? Studies have shown that the home lit-
eracy environment provided by parents facilitates the devel-
opment of early reading skills in typically developing
children (Baker & Scher, 2002; Bus, van IJzendoorn &
Pellegrini, 1995; DeTemple, 2001; Senechal & LeFevre,
2002; Storch & Whitehurst, 2001). The home literacy envi-
ronment is often dened as the frequency and nature of
literacy-related activities in the home, particularly shared
parentchild book reading (Payne, Whitehurst & Angell,
1994). A print-rich home environment in which parents read
with their children results in childrens growth in language
skills, conceptual knowledge, phonological awareness, letter
knowledge, knowledge of print conventions, reading strate-
gies, and interest in reading (Baker & Scher, 2002; Bus
et al., 1995; DeTemple, 2001; Gunn, Simmons & Kameenui,
1998; Payne et al., 1994; Senechal & LeFevre, 2002; Storch
& Whitehurst, 2001). Furthermore, a teaching focus in the
home, dened as the frequency of teaching children to read
and print words, relates to childrens acquisition of phone-
mic awareness, letter knowledge and vocabulary (Foy &
Mann, 2003). Although little research exists specically on
the early literacy experiences of children with DS, parents
do seem to provide these children with rich home literacy
environments, with the most frequent literacy activity being
shared story reading (Fitzgerald, Roberts, Pierce & Schuele,
1995). Families of children with DS report having 50 or
more childrens books in their homes and reading to their
children for 10 to 30 minutes per day (Al Otaiba, Lewis &
Whalon, 2009). In light of these documented home practices
of families of children with DS, it is critical to carry
out further investigation of parents views on the reading
development of these children.
Certain characteristics typically seen in children with DS
have led researchers to investigate reading in this popula-
tion. For instance, children with DS often exhibit a weakness
in expressive language and a relative strength in visual
memory (Fowler, 1990; Kumin, 1994; Leddy, 1999;
Hodapp, Evans & Gray, 1999; Hodapp & Ricci, 2002).
Although there is a range of reading achievement among
these individuals, as many as half of children and adoles-
cents with DS were able to read at least 50 words (Buckley,
Bird & Byrne, 1996; Buckley & Sacks, 1987). Some 60% to
70% of individuals with DS in Australia and the UK achieve
functional levels of literacy (Buckley, 2001). Some children
bs_bs_banner

PARENTAL LITERACY VISIONS FOR CHILDREN WITH DOWN SYNDROME
2012 The Authors. British Journal of Special Education 2012 NASEN. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road,
Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8578.2012.00547.x
with DS can read at levels that are not only comparable to
the reading abilities of typically developing children, but are
also more advanced than their own cognitive abilities (Byrne
et al., 1995; Byrne et al., 2002). Some researchers have
found that the very act of reading helps improve the speech
and language skills of children with DS (Buckley, 2001).
Children with DS have been found to improve in their pho-
nological awareness and reading skills as a result of weekly
interventions targeted at phonics instruction (Cologon,
Cupples &Wyver, 2011). Lemons and Fuchs (2010) empha-
sise the need for further research on the reading skills of
children with DS, especially the role of phonics-based
instruction.
Despite this growing body of research on reading and DS,
very few studies have explored parental perspectives on the
reading skills and potential of these children. In a study of
the educationally related knowledge of parents of children
with intellectual disabilities, 23.8% of parents reported that
their children with DS received instruction in reading in
their schools (Fidler et al., 2002). Furthermore, 60% of the
parents in the study desired more reading instruction for
their children with DS. In a similar study, Fidler et al. (2003)
found that parents of children with DS had a range of
responses regarding reading, with some indicating an
emphasis on overall reading instruction and others empha-
sising specic skills and programmes. The present study
extends this earlier research by exploring parental perspec-
tives about the reading development of children with DS.
Method
Participants
The participants in this study consisted of 50 parents of
children with DS, all of whom were diagnosed with trisomy
21. The children consisted of 25 boys and 25 girls between
the ages of three and 13 years. As shown in Table 1, the
mean mental age (MA) of these children was 3.74 years,
using average age-equivalent scores on the Communication
domain of the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scale (Sparrow,
Balla & Cicchetti, 1984). Sixty-two percent of the children
were Caucasian, and 24% were of Hispanic descent.
Ninety-four percent of the families were English-speaking,
with a few families whose primary language was Spanish
or Russian. The parents who responded to the survey were
primarily mothers in their late 30s with some college
education.
Procedure
The rst author conducted a brief phone interview and
survey focused on understanding parents perspectives about
reading and their children with DS. Approval to conduct this
research was obtained from the Institutional Review Board
at the University of California, Los Angeles. Families of
children with DS were recruited through parent support
groups in the greater Los Angeles area. Some families were
present at meetings in which the rst author sought volun-
teers for participation, while other families later responded
to yers announcing the research study. Once parents
consent to participate in the study had been obtained, the
rst author contacted the parents via telephone to conduct a
brief interview about their childs functioning and mailed
questionnaires to the families inquiring about their family
characteristics and home literacy practices. The parents
completed and returned the questionnaire to the university
by mail or in person.
Instruments
A demographics questionnaire measuring the characteristics
of children with DS and their families was developed for this
study. The questions about the child included date of birth,
gender, ethnicity, enrolment in educational programmes, and
presence of hearing loss. Family characteristics consisted of
parents ages, highest level of education completed, occupa-
tions, ethnicity, range of family income, number and ages of
siblings, number of other adults living in the home, number
of hours parents work outside the home, and languages
spoken in the home. The questionnaire also asked whether
parents belong to DS support groups (yes or no), the degree
of their involvement (not active to very active), whether
anyone had spoken to them about teaching reading to their
child with DS (yes or no), and the number of sources of
reading advice (for example, the childs teacher, relatives,
parents of other children with DS, speakers at events related
to DS).
Table 1: Characteristics of families of children with DS
Variable Participants
Chronological age of child (mean SD) 7.91 (3.40)
Vineland communication age-equivalent
score (mean SD)
3.74 (2.11)
Primary language spoken in the home
English 47
Spanish 2
Russian 1
Ethnicity of child
Caucasian 31
Hispanic 12
Asian American 1
Other (mixed ethnicity) 6
Mothers age (mean SD) 39.82 (6.57)
Years of mothers education (mean SD) 14.82 (2.22)
No. of siblings (mean SD) 1.78 (1.37)
Presence of hearing impairment (yes:no) 3:47
Hours mothers work outside the home
(mean SD)
16.19 (17.64)
Parents marital status (married:divorced or
separated)
46:4
Active member of DS support group
(yes:no)
33:17
Has anyone talked about reading to your
child with DS? (yes:no)
39:11
No. of sources of DS reading advice (mean
SD)
2.26 (1.54)
No. of hours of reading instruction
received in school
3.04 (0.88)
No. of hours of reading instruction
received at home
2.11 (0.96)
124 British Journal of Special Education Volume 39 Number 3 2012 2012 The Authors. British Journal of Special Education 2012 NASEN
All parents were interviewed by phone using the Communi-
cation domain of the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scale
(Sparrow et al., 1984), which measures competence in
receptive, expressive and written language in individuals
from birth to 18 years of age. Normed on 3,000 individuals,
the Vineland has good reliability and validity (with median
reliability coefcients ranging from 0.80s to 0.90s). The
Communication domain of the Vineland has been used as a
measure of mental age in previous studies of children with
DS (Hodapp, Ricci, Ly & Fidler, 2003; Ricci & Hodapp,
2003).
All parents in this study responded to an open-ended ques-
tion that probed their perspectives about their childrens
reading development. The question also invited parents to
share any relevant anecdotes. Parents responded to this
prompt by writing their thoughts in paragraphs, which were
then coded by the authors using qualitative analyses.
The Child Interest in Reading Questionnaire, measuring
childrens enjoyment of reading, was based on previous
studies that have examined childrens interest in reading
(DeBaryshe, 1995; Storch & Whitehurst, 2001). The ques-
tionnaire contained the following items:
1. In a typical week, how often does your child amuse
himself/herself with books?
2. In a typical week, how often does your child ask you
to read to him/her?
3. Typically, how much does your child like reading
books with you?
4. How many books does your child like to read each
time you read with him/her?
5. How many favorite books does your child have?
The ve items were scored along a ve-point Likert scale.
Data analysis procedures
The quantitative data from the Child Interest in Reading
Questionnaire were analysed using SPSS. Descriptive sta-
tistics using frequency counts and percentages of responses
were examined to determine the trends in the data.
Qualitative data were coded using the grounded theory
approach (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Initially, parents
responses to the open-ended question were coded using
initial open codes. Every sentence or thematically organised
cluster of sentences that contained a complete thought was
given a code. Many of the codes were based on the key
words that represented the main idea of the parent response.
For example, a response of I have a goal of my child being
able to read was given the code goals. Within the same code
category were responses that did not contain the key word,
but were similar to it in their message, such as I want him to
relate to books with things that happened in his life . . . or
can happen in future . . . recognise situations when they are
presented to him: doctor, dentist, optometrist. The two
authors independently came up with 28 codes, as they coded
30% of the data. They reached 90% agreement in their initial
codes.
During the second step of analysis, the codes were analysed
for emerging themes. Twenty-eight initial open codes were
collapsed into nine central themes. Some themes retained
the central code in the cluster. For example, we kept the
theme name of goals when we collapsed several codes, such
as parents key goal, parents expectations and parents
hopes. Other themes received an independent label from
the initial codes. For example, such codes as reported child
as a good reader, reported being happy with childs
progress and reported that reading is hard for the child
were collapsed into a broader theme of present levels of
performance.
To enhance the validity of this study, the two authors
engaged in the following procedures, recommended for
sound analysis of qualitative data (Brantlinger et al., 2005).
First, the two authors met regularly during the process of
data coding to debrief in order to increase the credibility of
our qualitative coding. The system of codes described above
was formed and nalised based on these discussions. The
meetings were held throughout the open coding stage and
during the stage when the nine central themes were identi-
ed. The authors independently coded 30% of all the
responses. They reached 90% inter-rater reliability in this
process.
Results
Childrens interest in reading
Descriptive analyses on the Child Interest in Reading Ques-
tionnaire revealed that children with DS have a strong inter-
est in reading. On this questionnaire, 82% of parents
reported that their children with DS like reading books a
lot or really love it, and 64% of parents reported that their
children with DS amused themselves with books as often as
ve times per week or more. Parents also reported that their
children request at least two or more books during joint
reading sessions (64%) and have two or more books
that they consider favourites (60%). Furthermore, parents
reported that their children with DS ask them to read books
together ve times per week or more (52%).
Parental perspectives on reading
Nine themes emerged from the qualitative analysis of
parents written responses. In their open-ended comments,
the parents of children with DS frequently mentioned their
childs attitude toward reading, their goals for their child,
their childs present level of reading as being an area of
strength (and for some parents, an area of concern), their
strategies for reading with their child, their childs interac-
tion with print, their familys interactions with print, the
homeschool interaction related to print, and their needs and
fears related to their childs reading. Table 2 shows the
percentage of participants who discussed each theme, as
well as what percentage of the total responses reected each
theme.
Childs attitude toward reading
A majority of parents discussed their childrens positive
attitude toward reading (82%).
2012 The Authors. British Journal of Special Education 2012 NASEN British Journal of Special Education Volume 39 Number 3 2012 125
These parents stated that their children love to read or that
reading is a favourite activity for their children with DS.
Parents used phrases such as really likes to read, always
loves to be read to, high interest in reading, and reading
gives child much satisfaction, pride, and sense of accom-
plishment. One mother stated that a trip to the library is like
a trip to Disneyland for her child. Other parents described
their children as toting several books around with them, even
sneaking extra books into backpacks and preferring to read
over other activities. Parents described their childrens joy in
the predictability of stories and of imitating facial features of
characters in books. Many parents shared the feeling of pride
their child experienced in book-related tasks, such as holding
a book correctly or recognising a new word.
Parents goal for child to be a reader
Many parents in this study also stated that one of their key
goals is for their child with DS to become a reader (72%).
These parents envisioned their children as becoming pro-
cient readers who enjoy reading for pleasure. To these
parents of children with DS, there seemed little doubt that
their children with DS would acquire reading skills. Several
parents mentioned the current grade level or future level at
which they would like their child with DS to read. For
example, one mother stated:
Reading is the single most important goal I have for
my son . . . I hope he can eventually read at a
functional 4th grade, at least, level.
A mother of a preschool-age child with DS shared her
thoughts in this way:
I know that she will read. I do not know when but I
know she will. I can see her reading books on her own,
her bible on her own, combining sentences and
paragraphs on her own. The time will come. It is our
goal that she learns to read and write. Even if we have
to hire a private tutor, we will teach her and help her
achieve this goal.
Present level of performance: reading as a strength
Many parents in this study described their childs present
level of performance in reading as an area of strength (62%).
These parents were well aware of their childs exact level of
achievement in reading, with several reporting that their
child had a repertoire of more than 100 sight words and
knowledge of letter names and sounds. Several parents also
reported the specic grade level of their childs reading
achievement, which ranged from rst grade to fth grade.
One mother described her sons attainment of reading:
He began to recognize pictures and relate them to
sound when he was about 2 years old. For example,
bus, cat, dog. Later he recognized the
combination of sounds in relation to the character in
the picture. For example, o as a round conguration
of the lips. He really took off at about 8 yrs old in 2nd
grade. Now at 13 yrs he reads uently with few words
mispronounced.
Parents also stated that their childs strength in reading
improved their speech and language skills, as in this
example of a girl whose mother said:
she knows all of her upper and lower case letters
(including the sounds associated with the letters), sight
recognizes approximately 300 words and can read
simple books with simple sentences. Her speech is more
intelligible and her grammar is better when she is
reading (rather than spelling.)
Parents of children exposed to more than one language also
revealed that their children were developing literacy in both
languages.
Strategies for reading
Some parents (34%) also shared strategies for supporting
their childrens development of reading skills. Parents
emphasised that they read books aloud to their children daily
at an early age, using such terms as since he was in the
womb, at birth and from day one. Parents stated that they
used sign language, ashcards for teaching sight words, and
educational computer programmes. Several parents dis-
cussed their use of Love and Learning, a structured sight-
word reading programme specically for children with DS.
Other strategies used by parents during shared reading
included paraphrasing text for younger children with DS,
making up their own story to accompany pictures in a book,
omitting words and waiting for the child to ll in, and
selecting books related to the childs interests and necessary
life skills.
Present level of performance: reading as a difculty
Although the majority of parents in this study described
reading as an area of strength for their child, 32% of the
parents described reading as an area of difculty due to their
childs limitations in cognitive and speech skills. Some of
these parents mentioned their childs difculty in phoneti-
cally sounding out letters in words; others stated that even
after their child learns to decode simple words, comprehen-
Table 2: Percentage of themes in responses
Theme
No. and % of
participants who
discussed it
% of total
responses
Childs attitude toward
reading
41/50 = 82% 41/178 = 23%
Parents goals for child 36/50 = 72% 36/178 = 20%
Reading as area of
strength
31/50 = 62% 31/178 = 17%
Strategies for reading 17/50 = 34% 17/178 = 9.6%
Reading as area of concern 16/50 = 32% 16/178 = 9%
Childs interaction with
print
15/50 = 30% 15/178 = 8.4%
Family interaction around
print
9/50 = 18% 9/178 = 5.1%
Homeschool interaction
around reading
8/50 = 16% 8/178 = 4.5%
Parents fears or needs 5/50 = 10% 5/178 = 2.8%
126 British Journal of Special Education Volume 39 Number 3 2012 2012 The Authors. British Journal of Special Education 2012 NASEN
sion of more elaborate text remains an area of challenge.
According to several parents, their childrens difculty or
lack of speech contributes to difculties in reading because
others cannot understand what the child with DS is reading.
One mother stated:
because she is so speech delayed, its hard work
getting her to start reading words. She mumbles and
talks all the time, but you cant always understand
what she is saying.
Childs interaction with print
Additionally, some parents in this study (30%) discussed
their childs interaction with print. Parents shared that their
children with DS engaged with print by pretending to read
as well as pointing at words and pictures and asking what
does that say? One mother described her daughters inter-
action with print in this manner:
A recent occurrence was when we were reading a new
book called No Biting that has ip pages with a few
words on the page. After reading the book a second
time, my daughter remembered the responses and when
she was asked the words on the page as I pointed she
seemed to read the words as well. My husband was
impressed when she actually pointed to the words and
read the words off the page by herself.
Several parents mentioned their younger children imitating
older siblings demeanour during reading and reading aloud
to make-believe friends.
Family interaction around reading
Of the parents participating in this study, 18% discussed
their familys interaction with reading. These parents
described shared reading as a family activity, with mothers,
fathers, older siblings and grandparents reading aloud to the
child with DS. They described reading together every night
as an important family ritual. One mother stated that through
modelling by an older sibling, her child has cultivated a
similar taste for books. They love bedtime stories and enjoy
looking through books together before the lights are turned
off.
Home/school interaction
Eight out of 50 (16%) of the parents in this study discussed
the interaction between home and school, sharing both posi-
tive and negative experiences with teachers. Several men-
tioned time spent in reading instruction at their childs
school and the skills that teachers are working on with their
children, such as reading sight words and sounding out new
words. A few parents mentioned that teachers were unaware
of how to teach reading to children with DS, with one
mother stating, the educators dont or wont have any faith
that they can read. As a result, these parents said they try to
compensate by bringing resources to teachers or using more
strategies to teach their children to read at home.
Parents fears/needs
Finally, 10% of parents in this study shared their fears or
needs related to reading achievement in their children with
DS. These fears included television as an interference with
reading, nding books at the childs reading level, and
knowing the proper approach for teaching children with DS
to read.
Discussion
The goal of this study was to investigate parental perspec-
tives on the reading development of their children with DS.
First, parents responses indicate that children with DS have
a strong interest in reading. On the Child Interest in Reading
Questionnaire, 82% of parents reported that their children
like reading books a lot or really love it. More than half
of children with DS interacted with books frequently, asked
their parents to read with them often, and had two or more
favourite books. The most frequently occurring theme in
parents open-ended responses was their childrens positive
attitudes toward reading, with one parent describing a trip to
the library as being like a trip to Disneyland for her child.
This positive interest in reading in children with DS serves
as a call to educators to increase their efforts to teach reading
to these children as indicated by federal mandates (No Child
Left Behind, 2001).
This study also revealed that parents have clear and very
ambitious goals with regard to reading development in their
children with DS. This studys nding that 72% of the
parents described reading as a key goal for children with DS
further underscores the importance of providing literacy
interventions for this population. The parents in this study
were positively predisposed toward their childrens reading
progress, with some showing acute awareness of their
childs level of reading performance as well as useful inter-
ventions. As in earlier studies which showed parents of DS
as being well-attuned to their childrens developmental
levels (Fidler et al., 2002; Fidler et al., 2003), the parents in
this study shared specic details about what their children
had achieved in the area of reading. For example, some
shared the exact number of words their child could read,
while others indicated the grade level at which their child is
reading. Furthermore, parents described both their family
interactions and home/school interactions related to literacy,
indicating that they are proactive in engaging others to
support the reading development of their children with DS.
Thirdly, data from this study provide further evidence that
children with DS can indeed learn to read, conrming nd-
ings of earlier studies (Byrne et al., 1995; Byrne et al., 2002;
Laws et al., 1995). The children with DS had a range of
reading skills, extending from a sight word vocabulary rep-
ertoire of more than 100 words to reading at the sixth grade
level. Parents reported that their children had beneted from
early interventions aimed at increasing their reading skills.
Like families in earlier studies, these parents also reported a
desire for additional reading instruction for their children
with DS (Fidler et al., 2002; Fidler et al., 2003).
Furthermore, parents in this study shared various strategies
for teaching reading, indicating that they actively seek ways
of improving their childrens literacy skills. These parents
shared storybook reading at an early age has been found to
2012 The Authors. British Journal of Special Education 2012 NASEN British Journal of Special Education Volume 39 Number 3 2012 127
be an important component of a literacy-rich home environ-
ment (Baker & Scher, 2002; Bus et al., 1995; DeTemple,
2001; Payne et al., 1994; Senechal & LeFevre, 2002; Storch
& Whitehurst, 2001). Some of the strategies described by
these parents including paraphrasing text, making up their
own story to accompany the pictures in a book, omitting
words and pausing for the child to ll in might be worthy
of further investigation to determine if they are indeed effec-
tive with this population.
It is important to note that although many parents
described reading as an area of relative strength for their
children with DS, some also described it as a difculty due
to the childs cognitive and speech delays. Several parents
mentioned that even when their children with DS learn to
decode words, comprehension of text remains an area of
challenge for them. We need further studies in this eld to
have an accurate understanding of the reading potential
and achievement of children with DS. Finally, 10% of
the parents in this study shared their concerns related to
their childrens reading achievement centred on minimis-
ing distractions such as television, and nding the right
books and the right approach to teaching reading to chil-
dren with DS. This nding highlights the need to support
and empower parents in building their childrens reading
skills.
The limitations of this study must also be considered. First,
this study is based on parents estimations of their childrens
reading abilities instead of independent assessments of chil-
drens reading skills. The small sample size of this study
might also limit its generalisability. We do not know if these
parents represent the views of others with children with DS.
Furthermore, the participants in this study consist mainly of
middle-class, Caucasian families, who may or may not
report similar experiences and beliefs about reading as
parents with diverse cultural, linguistic and economic back-
grounds. Further investigation of parental perspectives
related to reading in children with DS is therefore needed to
conrm these ndings.
Nevertheless, as one of few studies investigating parental
perceptions of literacy in this population, this study contrib-
utes to our base of knowledge about reading development in
children with DS. According to many parents in this study,
children with DS have a strong interest in reading and can
indeed learn to read. These parents also have ambitious
goals for their children and go to great lengths to support
their growth in reading. In pursuing national efforts to help
all children become competent readers, educators should
build upon this knowledge and build home/school partner-
ships with families to support the reading progress of chil-
dren with DS in their classrooms.
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Address for correspondence:
Dr Leila Ricci
California State University, Los Angeles Special
Education and Counselling
5151 State University Drive
Los Angeles
California 90032
USA
Email: Lricci@calstatela.edu
Article submitted: March 2012
Accepted for publication: July 2012
2012 The Authors. British Journal of Special Education 2012 NASEN British Journal of Special Education Volume 39 Number 3 2012 129
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