A Deaf Child’s Natural Development of Literacy

Abstract

This case study reports the first investigation of a young deaf child’s experiences with books. It describes six steps in a developmental sequence of seven stages, from simply labeling pictures and signs to reading independently. One of the most interesting aspects of development was the child’s spontaneous analysis of sign drawings in storybooks that illustrate each word with a sign. These sign drawings provided a bridge between signed and spoken discourse and print. Concepts she discovered about books include: stories are to be enjoyed and repeated; they are means both of social interaction and of private satisfaction; characters have styles of speaking and books have narration and dialogue; stories have plots. Concepts about print relate to directionality, letter patterns, and that print, signs, and speech interrelate.

Becoming Literate in a Preschool Class: Literacy Development of Hearing-Impaired Children

“…Children, as they engage in social events, gain knowledge about literacy and literacy learning (Ewoldt, 1985(Ewoldt, , 1987(Ewoldt, , 1991Harste, Woodward, & Burke, 1984;Maxwell, 1983Maxwell, , 1984Teale & Sulzby, 1986).…”

“…Most of the prior studies cited above focused on hearing-impaired children of deaf parents (Ewoldt, 1985(Ewoldt, , 1991Maxwell, 1983Maxwell, , 1984 or older hearing-impaired children (Conway, 1985). Only a recent study by Williams (1991), like the current research, focused on very young hearing-impaired children who came from hearing families and did not have access to oral language or a formal system of sign language (i.e., American Sign Language).…”

Procesos Cognitivos Implicados en La Lectura De Los Sordos

“…Igualmente, Puente, Alvarado y Herrera (2006) encontraron una fuerte correlación entre la habilidad de los estudiantes sordos para segmentar palabras en letras y la habilidad para segmentar palabras en dactilología, sugiriendo que los niños sordos utilizan la similitud entre dactilología y ortografía para establecer reglas de correspondencia entre queiremas y grafemas. Maxwell (1984) observó que los estudiantes sordos identificaban con mayor claridad las palabras escritas que no conocían o que no tenían un equivalente en su lengua de signos (como las palabras función), cuando usaban la dactilología para recordarlas. Estas investigaciones dan cuenta de que la dactilología tiene el potencial de ayudar a los lectores sordos a descifrar palabras, sin embargo esta estrategia debe ser sistematizada, ya que los niños sordos no vinculan de forma espontánea la ortografía y la dactilología.…”

Exploring Emergent Literacy Behaviors of Filipino Deaf Children

“…Studies document young deaf children's experimentation with reading and writing (Maxwell, 1984, Ruiz, 1995Ewoldt & Saulier, 1995;Ewoldt, 1985;Bustos, 1999;Dario, 2001). As a research field, emergent literacy of young deaf children has also gained acceptance (Williams, 2004).…”