Twenty-five second generation deaf signers (6-16 years old) participated in three experiments measuring their ability to classify fingerspelled and signed words and attend to the individual handshapes within fingerspelled words. Results revealed that Ss could discriminate fingerspelled words and decompose fingerspelling into the handshapes that…

The paper examines the role of morphological (word) cues in reading and considers the implications for deaf students. Theories on the importance of decoding and morphological comparison in competent reading comprehension are reviewed, and studies on how successful deaf readers learn morphological cues are described. Findings show that deaf readers…

Shows that fingerspelling makes learning the task of separating the word into its parts fun as well as easier for some students. (FL)

Reports on three experiments that explored the metalinguistic competence of 26 deaf students to segment and manipulate their fingerspelled lexicons. Indicates their metalinguistic sophistication correlated selectively and significantly with reading success. Also reports on a training experiment that showed that deaf students identified more sight…