Research suggests that English-language proficiency is critical if students who are deaf or hard of hearing (D/HH) are to read as their hearing peers. One explanation for the traditionally reported reading achievement plateau when students are D/HH is the inability to hear insalient English morphology. Signing Exact English can provide visual…

Examines and rejects the theory that the deaf have access to a "phonological" code. Recommends that if deaf children are to be introduced to a manual system of communication, it should be the syntactically adequate Paget-Gorman system. (Author/FL)

Examines whether manually coded English (MCE) sign language systems are learnable. Reading achievement and expressive English skills of deaf students educated using only a MCE sign system were examined. Deaf students had expressive English skills comparable to hearing students in respect to syntactical and lexical skills but were deficient in…

A review of research concerning reading achievement of prelingually deaf students found that studies comparing signing versus non-signing parents without regard for parental hearing status typically found no relationship between parental method and reading skills. Studies examining specific types of manual communication found a relationship…

Discusses background information about the deaf that may be useful to reading teachers working with older deaf students; suggests additional sources of information on sign language and reading instruction for the deaf. (MKM)

The study compared scores of 2 groups of hearing-impaired students ages 5 to 12 years on a literacy battery. Subjects (n=73) were receiving instruction which either completely encoded spoken English or incompletely encoded spoken English. Those receiving completely encoded English instruction tended to score higher on achievement tests especially…