Troncoso Method: what it is and how it is applied to boys and girls

Until relatively recently, the idea that people with Down syndrome and others with disorders linked to neurodevelopmental problems was that it would be very difficult for them to acquire everyday skills such as reading and write.

Fortunately, this idea ended up being disproved with the emergence of a Troncoso method, especially focused on this group. Let's look at its history, main objectives and characteristics.

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What is the Troncoso method?

The Troncoso method is a methodology focused on the acquisition and improvement of reading and writing skills, especially aimed at people with Down syndrome.

Its main author is María Victoria Troncoso, and it takes special emphasis on the potential of discrimination and visual memory, skills that often stand out in people with both Down syndrome and a Spectrum Disorder Autistic.

History

The Troncoso method It has its origins in the 70s, originally focused on children with intellectual disabilities or with specific difficulties in learning to read. However, it would be during the 1980s that this methodology would take more shape, being applied to students. with Down syndrome who had been fortunate enough to have received, since birth, Care programs Early.

The appearance of this method was revolutionary, since helped dispel some of the myths regarding literacy skills and Down syndrome. In the era before the development of the Troncoso method, the idea was well established that people who had trisomy of chromosome 21, along with any A person with an IQ of less than 60 or a mental age of less than 6 years was unlikely to learn to read and, if they did, they would not have any understanding of what read.

Based on this thought, since there have been no efforts to teach the population with Down to read and writing, nor had teaching programs been designed properly and well focused on this group. Fortunately, the Troncoso method contributed to the weakening of these ideas, since a way was found to make people with Down syndrome literate.

The current panorama is very different. It has gone from having practically the entire population with Down syndrome illiterate to nearly 80% knowing how to read more or less comprehensively..

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Fundamental approach

Before understanding in depth what the fundamental approach of the Troncoso method is, it is necessary to highlight what literacy is.

In essence, reading consists of accessing a written message, decoding the sounds represented in the symbols that we put on paper, and understand both the individual meaning of the words and the idea they give off together in a sentence, without having to pronounce them orally. words. On the other hand, writing involves expressing a message in written form, transforming ideas and concepts into something represented graphically and using a certain code.

Although both processes are closely related, writing and reading involve different actions., but together they imply understanding and recreating meanings through a written code.

Understanding all this is very important when talking about people who have Down syndrome. These people have physical, psychological, evolutionary characteristics and learning rates that are different from those presented by people without intellectual disabilities. This is essential to take into account when teaching reading and writing, given that we will not start from the same point as we do with students without the syndrome.

Troncoso discovered that a fundamental aspect in the acquisition of reading and writing skills in boys and girls with the syndrome was having received Early Care. In fact, based on this proposed the idea that these children could be taught to read and write before they reached school age and, thus, help them integrate into school more easily.

Goals

The objectives of the method focus on ensuring that students, specifically those who suffer from Down syndrome, can acquire reading skills and writer good enough to be able to have an independent life, being able to deal in a functional and practical way with their social environment and cultural.

The objectives set out below follow this same order, going from the most basic to more socially extrapolated levels.

Reading

The main objectives of the method focused on reading competence are, from lower complexity to higher complexity:

• Simple daily actions: reading signs, menus, neighborhood notices...
• Being able to read in your free time: understand video game dialogues, consult the billboard, read current news...
• Provide them with the reading level to be able to study on their own, extracting the fundamental ideas from academic documents.
• Enjoy higher literature: poetry, classics, beautiful forms of literature...
• Be critical of what you read, relate, contrast and compare the information you receive from the media.

Writing

Regarding the objectives to achieve during the development of reading skills we have the following, ordered from least to most complex:

• Be able to write your first and last name and sign.
• Write small lists: family names, shopping list...
• Write small dictations.
• Write letters or short summaries of your readings, movies, experiences...
• Write essays, do short essays, write in the diary...

As surprising as the ultimate goals to be achieved in reading and writing may seem, writing, the truth is that a significant percentage of the current population with Down syndrome has them. reached.

Yes ok They can also be extrapolated to the rest of children without intellectual disabilities, the fact that the method has been shown to be effective for a group that until recently was considered non-literate is very notable.

Characteristics and application of the method

During the application of the method, the priority and fundamental thing is that the student understands what he reads, that he acquires fluency and be motivated both during initiation and learning and progress in the short, medium and long term. As long ensure that the individual gains fluency without losing motivation, the program is carried out taking into account the needs of each person, the Troncoso method being applied individually and personally.

The educator in question, whether teacher or family member, works with a single student in each session, adapting the activities depending on how you are seeing that the literacy process is developing and providing the child with the materials that are necessary. The teacher chooses the objectives, selects the materials and executes the activities systematically. and structured although, depending on how appropriate it is, it may allow some flexibility.

The Troncoso method, since it has been specially developed for people with intellectual disabilities, takes into account the need for each new learning to be consolidated. To achieve this objective, the learning is repeated as many times as necessary so that the student can understand it. is so well established that it can be transferred and generalized to other contexts beyond the classroom. This means that the method ensures that the child achieves reading and writing outside of the session.

Although it is not a disadvantage that the child has not yet begun to speak, it is appropriate that he is familiar with the idea that people, animals, things, and actions have names. To check that this is so, you can say the name of something (e.g. e.g., “ball”) and, although he does not repeat it, if he locates it and evokes it, it will be understood that he relates that word to the object in question.

This is a fundamental aspect, since the method consists of presenting a written word to the child and reading it several times during several sessions, also indicating what it refers to. The child, based on having been exposed to that visual information over and over again, will relate those symbols with an object, action or person and, consequently, will “read” the word from memory once it is see. It is important that the written word is presented in something physical, such as a wooden token or cardboard, accompanied by a drawing of what it represents.

In short, the method can be described by overcoming the following stages:

1. Association

The child will learn to discriminate and match objects or drawings that are the same. This is done following the following progression:

Object-object. Object-image. Image-image. Image with the word-image with the word. Word-word

2. Selection

The child selects among several objects that meet the characteristics indicated.

3. Classification

The child establishes different categories for having a certain common quality, such as they can be the same semantic field, the same utility, relationship of place, size, origin...

4. Expression

The child expressively describes an object, highlighting its properties and qualities or something that attracts attention.

5. Generalization

The child exports what he has learned to different areas of life and situations with varied characteristics.

The advantage of teaching reading by this method, both with children with intellectual disabilities and in those that do not present it is that the information is presented in more than one way, facilitating the learning. On the one hand, there is the fact that The information is received visually (word together with the image it represents) and auditorily. (the teacher reads the word). On the other hand, the fact that the word is written means that it remains longer in the individual's consciousness, making it easier to leave it fixed in memory.

The words that are proposed to read to the student are those that he knows in his real life, such as "dad", "mom", "ball", "walk"... Once the written word has been associated with its graphic representation, the student will be able to form simple sentences using the cards on which they are written. In some cases the child is able to “read” orally what he puts on those cards although, in the case of Down syndrome, it is foreseeable that there will be some articulation problems.

One of the characteristics that may surprise you about the method, one may even think that it is counterintuitive, is the fact that it begins with the student learning to read the word in its global sense and, later, knowing how to break the word into syllables. That is, it is not that he reads each letter of the word to form the word as a whole (p. e.g., house = / ka-sa / or / k-a-s-a /) but, upon seeing the word, you immediately relate it to the concept of it. So fluency is prioritized over phonological awareness.

The daily time dedicated to teaching reading and writing is not very long, it is enough, usually between 5 and 10 minutes a day that can be easily incorporated into care sessions early. Little by little, the time is increased, emphasizing phonological awareness with the intention that, in the future, they will be able to read words they have never seen.