Phonics Case Study

6.2. Empirical Studies on Teaching Learners with Down Syndrome through Synthetic Phonics Strategies

Synthetic phonics as a practical and applicable method has been used for young normal learners both in native and non-native contexts and the results of the studies have shown that it is a successful method. The purpose in this section is to investigate the effectiveness of this method in teaching literacy to learners with intellectual disabilities which Down syndrome is one of the examples. In this section studies that have used this approach for learners with Down syndrome, are presented and the researcher concludes this part with her own attitude regarding to choosing this method for her participants in the current study.

Goetz et al. (2007)

Her study was a phonic-based approach. According to Broadley and MacDonald (1993, cited in Eggie, 2011) as individuals with DS are poor at sequential processing, multisensory instruction is an appropriate method to teach phonics to children with DS through small teaching steps. The author of this study argued that students with intellectual disabilities can learn and its educators' crucial role in the process of teaching to help these individuals to be independent learners. Researcher has conducted this study because she thought that the standards in children with disabilities should be higher than what we expect now. Two methods of data collection were used in this study. The first method was survey which was issued to the parents of children with DS to gain more information about difficulties in these children’s life. The second method was interview. Her participants were 6 students from 10-16 years old and all have been diagnosed with DS. They are from suburban area of Chicago. The process of study lasts for 6 months 2 days a week for one hour. The Core Phonics survey was utilized which has 3 sub-tests, consonant sounds, long vowel sounds, and short vowel sounds. Different materials including SLANT Instruction Manual, stage 1, lesson 1, rice box, alphabet banner, flash cards with lower case letters, sight word cards, worksheet, etc. The performance objectives in this research

First myth is introduced as receptive and expressive language which means understanding in a child with Down syndrome is measured by what he/she can say. A large body of research have shown that children with Down syndrome understand more than what they can say. (Martin, Klusek, Estingarriba & Roberts, 2009, cited in Cologon, 2013). Benefits of silent reading are mentioned in this part. It is argued that silent reading helps comprehension due to focus is on pronunciation rather than meaning in oral reading. (Halladay, 2012, cited in Cologon, 2013). Another advantages of silent reading is mentioned as it is helpful for reading and speech development. The second myth refers to phonological awareness and phonic decoding skills. This is outlook assumes children with Down syndrome without ability to develop their phonological awareness and phonic decoding skills. The rejection of this myths is explained as sight-word learning is a good method as Down syndrome children have strength in visual. (Fidler et al., 2005, cited in Cologon, 2013). In contrast sight-word learning by itself is insufficient for reading development and having capacity for sight-word learning does not mean that individuals with Down syndrome are limited in many other approaches as well. (Rose, 2006, cited in Cologon, 2013). Many studies have demonstrated