It is important to develop children's communication skills and monitor their speech and language development from the preschool period onwards. Communication, speech and language development can be promoted in different ways. One way is through reading and narrating different stories. It is important for children to understand the text that they are reading and that it is adapted to their age and linguistic abilities. Since 2011, Slovenia has also developed the easy reading strategy as a way of adapting texts to different groups of readers, initially intended for adults with intellectual disabilities, but later expanding to different groups of people with disabilities, also to children with typical development. Easy reading can be defined as all different types of information (whether in printed form, such as books, or sometimes in audio form, such as recordings) that aid and promote literacy development and at the same time contribute to social and psychological inclusion of people with reading difficulties. Communication in easy reading is adapted so that the content is communicated in a readable and comprehensible way.
The aim of the paper was to review and describe materials and texts written in the easy reading format and suitable for preschool children. Another aim was also to analyse the selected texts following the instructions for easy reading text formation.
When analysing the material, I followed the rules of easy reading and focused on the following criteria: font, text, words, numbers, sentences and phrases, and pictures. I analysed in more detail a book by Breznik, Sabina (2020). Peter the Turkey. Društvo Sožitje Zgornje Savinjske doline. In addition, I analysed 14 other books where most of the easy reading criteria were met (font, text, numbers and pictures). In most cases, the sentence and clause formation criteria were also met. However, occasionally, negative phrases and pronouns were used, with no clear indication to whom or what they refer.
Easy reading is useful and important as a means of promoting and developing reading literacy in preschool children.
|