Deaf Students In Reading Classrooms

It is important to note that these two stages do not require any introduction of text to the child. So far, the child is only being subjected to orthographic representations that will follow a sequential pattern for understanding based on context. The third stage involves the deaf child being acquainted with their first language, sign language. The child now begins to learn sign language and communicates with people using various signs as meanings. Sign language now becomes a replacement for oral communication. As time passes, the deaf child soon learns to associate the sign print with written English, and eventually reads the English language independently and with meaning. Studies and journal articles fail to further explain the reading process from a biological perspective with great detail. In other words, various psychologists and educators describe the process in an abstract and cognitive perspective. I am interested in understanding more about the reading process of deaf children in greater detail. .
             Comprehending whole printed texts, of any length or structure, presents major obstacles for most deaf readers (Strassman, 1994). Yet, members of society still have little practical information on how to guide the reading teacher in promoting the comprehension skills of deaf readers. Although we know that "deaf readers score low on standardized measures of reading comprehension skills" (Andrews et. al, 1994), there have been only a few descriptive case studies investigating just how deaf readers are comprehending whole texts. Recent research on reading comprehension emphasizes a cognitive viewpoint, rather than a perspective that focuses on discrete comprehension skills. Traditional reading instruction deals with mastery of separate skills, such as vocabulary building and finding the main idea. In contrast, the cognitive perspective emphasizes the mental activities involved in reading, in which readers construct meaning by integrating perceptual, linguistic, and conceptual information with their background knowledge.