Exploring literacy at home: introduction to the literate world of a young person with special education needs

Abstract

This article covers a study from the New Literacy Studies (NEL) on the teaching-learning process of reading and writing to people with special educational needs, specifically, a student with Down Syndrome; this focused on three stages: before during and after school. Therefore, the main objective is to
determine whether this teaching is adequate or not for these people, since, as it is known, they require a differentiated teaching method. To this end, the ethnographic methodology was followed, i.e., observations were made of the participant's practices at home and, in addition, an interview was applied
to his mother to obtain details about the classes and her perspective. From the findings, it was identified that both at school and in the speech, therapies received, the same teaching method was used: instructing the student to make strokes in dotted lines, in order to practice manual motor skills and then start with writing. It is concluded that this teaching method can help people with Down syndrome to read and know the letters and words, but not to write because they try to impose a type of running writing, which is difficult for them due to the morphology of their hands and lack of motor skills,  which causes them frustration and stress.