‘How Shall We Sign That?’: Interactions Between a Profoundly Deaf Tutor and Tutee Involved in a Cross-Age Paired Reading Program

Abstract

This paper reports on the use of a cross-age tutoring program designed to improve the literacy skills of a profoundly deaf girl. In a novel approach to such programs, both tutor and tutee participants were profoundly deaf and used Auslan as their common mode of communication. The results of the program indicate that cross-age peer tutoring has potential as an effective strategy for improving the literacy achievements of deaf children like the tutee participant. Analysis of the videotaped interactions between tutor and tutee over the course of the program provided unique insights into the nature of English literacy learning by profoundly deaf students. These insights point to a role for strategies like cross-age tutoring where the particular experience of. deafness can be used to promote more effective interpretation and understanding of English for profoundly deaf literacy learners.