This article describes how teaching deaf students to read has been challenging and contentious, yet, one crucial attribute to developing reading skills is early exposure to American Sign Language (ASL). ASL seemed to serve as a bridge to achieving English literacy and academic success partly because early use of ASL enables deaf students to…

The aim of this study was to clarify whether fingerspelling provides a sophisticated mechanism that promotes the development of detailed orthographic knowledge for deaf individuals even in the absence of paralleling phonological knowledge. An intervention program comprised of various procedures chaining between fingerspelled sequences; their…

Fingerspelling and its relationship with literacy skills among deaf and hard of hearing children who use American Sign Language is an increasingly popular research topic. However, there is limited research on whether reading interventions that systematically include fingerspelling are more effective for improving literacy skills than reading…

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…

Young deaf learners often have difficulty mastering the important skill of decoding print and developing phonological awareness necessary to become successful readers. The research question for the study was: How do K-2 deaf learners demonstrate literacy development when teachers of the deaf use instructional video with visual portrayals of…

Fingerspelling is an integral part of American Sign Language (ASL) and it is also an important aspect of becoming bilingual in English and ASL. Even though fingerspelling is based on English orthography, the development of fingerspelling does not parallel the development of reading in hearing children. Research reveals that deaf children may…

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…

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)

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…