The national policy in deaf education in Mainland China primarily focuses on oral/aural instruction and hearing rehabilitation. The curriculum in primary grades is specifically structured on speech and hearing skills for language development. But there is little evidence that documents what early literacy instruction looks like or how teachers…

The manual alphabet was used as an adjunct to a linguistic reading system to achieve the following goals with primary grade learning disabled children: (1) ensure attention, (2) reinforce the learning of phonemes, (3) guide the student if he had difficulties, (4) introduce prefixes and suffixes, and (5) provide the child with an independent…

Discusses the potential of sign language as a tool in teaching reading to normal hearing children and the success of this method with individuals who have various communication disorders. (EJS)

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)

Manual communication methods used by the deaf may be helpful techniques for remedial instruction with hearing children. (MKM)

Research indicates that using the manual alphabet in classes of non-deaf students is effective both for spelling and vocabulary instruction. Teachers appreciate the way signing physically involves the students, acts as a self-cueing system, is inexpensive, and helps with writing problems like "b" and "d" reversals. Other advantages are: (1) it is…

Deaf children come from all races, classes, and backgrounds, but as a group they have a hard time learning to read and write. The more hearing a child has, the better the child performs on tests of reading ability. Parents who can communicate well with their deaf children help them to perform well at school, but beyond "good"…

Evidence from a nine-month longitudinal study of deaf children's early attempts at learning to read provides the construct for an instructional model that stresses that even though the children may have, at the least, a meager expressive sign language vocabulary, they can be lead successfully through the holophrastic or one-word stage of reading…