The Wellcome Trust hosts a series of lunchtime discussions with local scientists. Last week Dr Mairéad MacSweeney was talking about her work in the Deafness, Cognition and Language Research Centre, at UCL. The Wellcome Trust recorded a podcast of the discussion, so check it out when it’s published.

Mairéad explained that she uses brain imaging techniques, with people born severely or profoundly deaf who use sign language, to investigate language processing. In deaf native signers (deaf children born to deaf, signing parents) children move through the same developmental milestones as children learning spoken language, and show similar brain activation. Mairéad explained that (in native speakers) the brain treats language as language.

I was interested to hear that in some parts of the country parents of deaf babies are being advised not to use sign language as this will stop babies learning to speak when they go on to get a cochlear implant. Mairéad suggested that research into the plasticity of the brain doesn’t support this idea. Instead, as with children exposed to more than one spoken language, children simply need good quality early language stimulation. They can then use this first language as a base to build another language on top of.

Mairéad told us that deaf children find it particularly hard to learn to read, she quoted a figure: at 16 years old the average reading age of a deaf teenager (with normal non-verbal IQ) is 11 years. Researchers have found that lip reading skills predict reading ability, so Mairéad’s team is developing a computer game to teach young children lip reading, and investigating the impact on reading. If teaching lip reading supports reading, it could be used with other children who struggle to learn to read, such as those with dyslexia.

I asked Mairéad why lip reading predicts reading skills. She explained that lip reading supports identifying phonemes and developing phonological representations. I wondered about children with autism, some who learn to read early. These children aren’t known to face watch, and therefore probably aren’t lip reading. Interesting!

It was a lovely way to spend a lunchtime, keep an eye out for any other relevant talks and go along. 

Photo by Image Editor

The folks at The Hanen Centre kindly sent me a copy of I’m Ready – How to Prepare Your Child for Reading Success and asked me what I thought. Here in the UK advice about how to support literacy skills seems to change frequently, so I was interested to see what Janice Greenberg and Elaine Weitzman suggest.

The book has 6 chapters: Early Literacy, Conversation, Vocabulary, Story Comprehension, Print Knowledge and Sound Awareness. It’s visually appealing; the text is broken up by photographs and drawings. I read it over several days and found it easy to pick up where I’d left off. There’s a comprehensive list of recommended children’s books, coded in terms of how they can be used to support literacy. I think the ‘Try it out!’ checklists and reflection questions look useful.

The book is full of practical examples from real families, so it’s both straight forward to apply and realistic, in terms of what parents can fit into their lives. There are plenty of Hanen’s trademark memory aids, some familiar like OWLing (observe, wait, and listen) and some new (to me) like POP – point out print.

My favourite thing about the book is how clear the authors are about the importance of making reading fun by following the child’s lead. I often worry that parents go in too heavy with the flashcards approach, which can put kids off, so I was relieved that the book stresses reading needs to be fun.

The blurb on the back of the book states that the authors have taken the most current research and broken it down into fun strategies for promoting early literacy. The only thing that frustrated me is that although they’ve provided references for each chapter, these aren’t clearly identified in the text. It simply says: “studies have found….” – so it’s not clear which study they are referring to. I think some parents (and professionals) would like to read more detail from the original research paper, and the format of the book doesn’t support this.

If you’re looking for ideas about how to use books (and conversation!) to prepare a child for reading and writing I’m Ready is packed full of them. It’s easy to read, practical and fun.

If you’re in the UK, the book is currently only available directly from Hanen. Hanen hope their UK distributor will be stocking it soon.