Teaching Reading Skills to Children with Intellectual Disabilities

Children begin acquiring reading skills long before entering formal education, but learning to read words, phrases, and entire sentences is something that needs to be taught once they enter the school system. Early reading skills, such as sight words, should be taught to preschool children. Once children begin learning sight words, it will give them more confidence in their reading ability and will, in turn, reduce frustration. When children feel confident in their ability to read sight words, it will help them become good readers, in order to be independent members who contribute to society. In order for a person to be independent, they must be able to move from one place to another, go grocery shopping, or fill out a job application form.

All of these things require a person to be able to read adequately. If an adult cannot read adequately, their life can be full of challenges. Although sight words are only one area of literacy, acquiring sight words is the foundation that leads to other reading skills such as fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. It also leads to increased self-confidence and motivation while reading.

Historically, the goal of achieving improved literacy for children with intellectual disabilities has remained out of reach. This is because reading instruction has traditionally focused on teaching functional basic words and vocabulary, such as reading streets and suburb names, or recognizing important safety signs. This method is unproductive, meaning that children do not study the logic of the alphabetic system, so they have little hope of generalizing what they have learned to new (untaught) words. Meanwhile, recent research indicates that these children benefit from high-quality instruction that includes reading and comprehension. Despite the important role literacy plays in school curricula, many children with intellectual disabilities have limited opportunities to achieve effective reading acquisition due to poor quality or lack of reading instruction, often coupled with low academic expectations from teachers. As a result, children with intellectual disabilities increasingly fall behind in reading. This is due to the gap in the knowledge base regarding effective reading instruction for children with intellectual disabilities.

Literacy for children with intellectual disabilities is considered one of the most important independence skills, because it increases their ability to learn independently, and to obtain and maintain a job in the future. However, often—some teachers—assume that these children are unable to benefit from learning to read, as they view the tasks involved in this matter as extremely complex or unnecessary. This view has led to abandoning their reading instruction.

In conclusion; the first step in helping children with intellectual disabilities achieve literacy is to presume competence in their ability to acquire such knowledge and skills. This means putting aside doubts and preconceptions about what a child might be able to achieve, based on their disability classification or IQ score assessment. Instead; we teach as if the child will learn. In other words; presuming competence in children with intellectual disabilities is the belief that all children can acquire valuable skills, if provided with the appropriate instruction and support.

Adnan Al-Hazmi

Faculty Member at Taibah University / Department of Special Education

Originally published in Arabic. This English version was produced with AI-assisted translation; the Arabic original remains the reference.