Increasing early reading skills in young signing deaf children using shared book reading: a feasibility study

ABSTRACT

A feasibility study was conducted to test a storybook intervention to increase early reading skills of 25 young signing deaf children of ages 4-9 in grades K through third grade. The children had wide ranges of hearing losses, non-verbal IQs, and signing skills. All were at risk for developing early reading skills, reading below the first grade level. Using a pre-experimental pre/post test design, standardized tests and early reading tasks, the children changes in letter, word and story knowledge were documented over a full school year. The intervention included 20 weekly story reading sessions with children receive modelling by Deaf story signers, with children using their signing and fingerspelling to practice storybook reading, story reciting, vocabulary learning, fingerspelling and writing skills with easy-to-read picture word/phrase storybooks after modelling from Deaf caregivers and teachers. Future research directions for intervention studies were outlined based on outcomes.

KEYWORDS:

• Deaf
• early reading
• American sign language
• fingerspelling
• shared book reading
• writing

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Jean F. Andrews is an professor emerita of Deaf Studies/Deaf Education at Lamar University, Beaumont, Texas, where she has taught and conducted research in language, literacy, Deaf culture, and forensics related to deaf individuals.

Hsiu-Tan Liu joins National Taiwan Normal University as an associate professor at the Department of Special Education. She teaches and conducts research in Taiwanese Sign Language and Literacy for Deaf students.

Chun-Jung Liu is an assistant professor of Chung Shan Medical University in Taiwan at the Department of Speech-Language-Pathology and Audiology. He teaches and conducts research in statistics, assessment and audiology.

Dr Mary Anne Gentry is an associate professor at Lamar University and currently serves as the Director of the Masters Degree Program in Deaf Studies/Deaf Education. She has trained K-12 teachers in Deaf Education at the MS level. Formerly, she has 23 years of experience teaching elementary Deaf students.

Zanthia Smith is an associate professor of Deaf Studies/Deaf Education at Lamar University, Beaumont, Texas, where she teaches and prepares American Sign Language teachers and interpreters, and serves as programme director for BS-level students.

Notes

1 The lower ‘d’ reflects the inability to hear, whereas a capital D typically represents a group of people who share a signed language and a culture (Leigh & Andrews, 2017, p. 12).

2 Contact the first author for information about the naturalistic tasks used in assessing and scoring early reading: fingerspelling/printing/spelling (FNG/PR/SP), alphabet naming, story book reading, story book reciting, and word recognition.