A father who read Whales, the Gentle Giants to his children paused periodically to help them connect the story to their own experiences. The children had chosen the book because it reminded them of the movie Free Willy. After the father read a section of the text about a blue whale, he turned to his 3-year-old daughter and asked, "Are whales big or small?" "Big," the girl replied. "Really big!" the father agreed. Then his 6-year-old son walked over to the far wall of the family room to show his sister how big a blue whale really is. "That big," he said.
His father told him that a blue whale is much bigger, but they remained skeptical. Then the father tried to help the children relate the whale's size to objects in their own lives. He said, "It's huge. It's the same as when you see a football field. It's big, right? This whale is bigger!"
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10. Deaf readers use attention maintenance strategies.
It is perfectly natural for deaf children to look away or down at the book sometimes while an adult is reading a story. Although this can be frustrating, experienced deaf readers find appropriate ways to respond (Akamatsu & Andrews, 1993; Andrews & Taylor, 1987; Lartz & Lestina, 1995; Van der Lem & Timmerman, 1990). Usually, deaf readers wait patiently until the child looks up again, then continue to read. Deaf readers also use a variety of strategies to keep their deaf children's attention.
Most commonly, a parent will lightly tap the child on the shoulder or leg to get attention. If the parent is sitting alongside the child, the parent will often gently nudge the child, or shift the book to first draw the child's attention back to the text, and then to the waiting parent. The deaf parent also uses facial expression to maintain attention, and eye contact appears to be central in holding the child's interest. One behavior noticed with hearing parents and teachers, but absent with deaf parents, is grabbing the child by the chin and forcibly pulling the child's face to attention.
While young children sometimes do this with their parents, it is not an acceptable practice to model for the children. Deaf readers also recognize the power of peripheral vision. They note that deaf children pick up a lot even when they are not looking directly at the reader's signs. And, since the deaf reader will often read the same story over and over again, the child will have plenty of opportunities to get any information missed during any one reading.
11. Deaf readers use eye gaze to elicit participation.
Eye contact is clearly an important consideration when reading to deaf children. Mather (1989) researched the importance of eye gaze when reading to deaf children. She found readers used two types of eye gaze during reading sessions: individual and group gaze. One deaf teacher used group gaze effectively to involve all of the students in the reading and individual gaze to direct questions or comments to particular children.
Mather noticed that hearing teachers sometimes used inappropriate eye gaze with deaf students, leading to miscommunication during reading sessions. One teacher, for example, commented to her class, "Some of you don't know this story." Instead of including the whole group, her gaze was focused on just one student. The child being singled out replied defensively, "I know! I know!" It is clear that eye gaze plays a key role in maintaining attention and eliciting responses during read aloud sessions.
12. Deaf readers engage in role play to extend concepts.
Several researchers point out that deaf readers often act out parts of a story to help clarify meaning (Ewoldt, 1984; Mather, 1989; Rogers, 1989). A deaf teacher who was reading The Three Little Kittens to a group of preschool deaf children noticed that the children were not following the story. Quickly, the teacher mimed the kittens tracking mud into the house. Then she brought the children into the role play by becoming the mother cat and scolding the kittens. The children's grins demonstrated their renewed understanding and involvement.
A mother and her 4-year-old deaf son also used role play during a session with the book Roll Over! A Counting Song by Merle Peek. This story is about a boy who shares his bed with nine animals. Each time they roll over, one animal falls out of bed. During the booksharing session, the deaf mother and her son were sitting on the bed as the mother read, "Ten in the bed and the little one said, 'Roll over! Roll over!' They all rolled over and one fell out."
When she finished the section, her son stood up and fell dramatically off his bed, landing exactly in the same spot as the monkey in the book. He climbed back into bed, and as his mother went on reading, he continued to role play the animals, each time falling happily out of bed.
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13. Deaf readers use ASL variations to sign repetitive English phrases.
Many predictable books for young children have phrases that are repeated over and over again. For example, "He huffed and he puffed and he blew the house in," from The Three Little Pigs, or "Fee! Fie! Fo! Fum! I smell the blood of an Englishman!" from Jack and the Beanstalk. When deaf readers read these repetitive phrases, they don't always sign them the exact same way. In fact, evidence suggests that deaf readers vary the way they sign repetitive English phrases. In these situations, the children see the English text remain constant in the book, while also being exposed to various ways to sign the concepts.
Sometimes these sign variations are used to maintain interest in the story. For example, in the story Roll Over! A Counting Song by Merle Peek, the chant, "Roll over! Roll over!" is repeated 10 times as each character in turn rolls off the bed. When a deaf mother read this book to her son, she pointed to the English text (which was the same each time), but then signed the text in various ways. Sometimes she used a classifier to show the animals rolling together. Other times, she used a different sign for "roll." Sometimes she used other variations.
The variety of ways she used to express the concept seemed to hold her son's interest in the story. Other times the use of sign variations helped to convey increased intensity or "volume," such as when each successive troll crosses over the bridge in The Three Billy Goats Gruff. While the English words remained the same, the deaf adult used different ASL translations each time the English phrase was repeated. Perhaps the readers were subconsciously demonstrating that there is no direct word-to-sign correspondence between English and ASL, and that, in fact, there are multiple ways to convey the English meaning in American Sign Language. In the process, the deaf readers are also developing the children's signed vocabulary, and, one can assume, promoting the children's ability to make meaning from the English text.
14. Deaf readers provide a positive and reinforcing environment.
Reading is supposed to be fun. It is also supposed to involve the construction of meaning through reciprocal interaction between readers and text. Unfortunately, in many classrooms with deaf children, the teacher controls both the interactions and the interpretation of the text. Ewoldt (1994) observed extensive control on the part of teachers during booksharing. The teachers she observed used a variety of correction responses to children's comments. Those responses ranged from simply telling a child, "You're wrong," to ignoring the child's answer, providing a different answer, changing the meaning of a child's message to fit the teacher's version of the story, or restating the teacher's own interpretation.
In contrast, research with deaf parents shows they provided a positive, interactive environment (Akamatsu & Andrews, 1993; Andrews & Taylor, 1987; Ewoldt, 1994; Rogers, 1989). They did not seek "correct" answers from the children during reading. Rather, they set up a mutually rewarding atmosphere that encouraged the creative interpretation of text. In one reading session (Schleper, 1995a), a deaf father was reading Little Red Riding Hood to his daughter. His daughter tapped his knee, then turned back to the previous page and pointed. "Look at the teeth!" she said. "Yeah, the teeth are sharp! Like fangs," the father said, reinforcing the child's observation. "They have blood on them," the daughter pointed out. The father questioned this, pointing to the illustration. "Where?" he asked. They examined the picture together. "Maybe you re right. They do have blood!" the father said.
Instead of ignoring his daughter, or telling her she was wrong, the father let her make her point. His positive, reinforcing response helped make booksharing enjoyable. And when the read aloud sessions are enjoyable, it is more likely that the child will retain fond, positive associations with books and reading.
15. Deaf readers expect the child to become literate.
A final principle that seems to underlie the read aloud sessions between deaf adults and deaf children is the positive belief in the children's abilities. Whitesell (1991) observed a deaf teacher with a reputation for producing good, enthusiastic readers, hoping to determine which of her teaching strategies and practices seemed most critical. After observing for an extended period of time, Whitesell discovered the key: "The teacher expected them to become literate."
Most deaf parents do not read to their children in order to teach them English or to instruct them in the reading process. They want to share their own love of books. While they may expect some academic benefit for the children, that is clearly secondary. When Schleper (1995a) asked deaf parents if they thought their children would become literate in English, they all replied, "Of course!" There was never any doubt.
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References
See A Look at the Research for an in-depth examination of the references below.
Akamatsu, C.T., & Andrews, J.F. (1993). It takes two to be literate: Literacy interactions between parent and child. Sign Language Studies, 81, 333-360.
Andrews, J.F., & Taylor, N.E. (1987). From sign to print: A case study of picture book reading between mother and child. Sign Language Studies, 56, 261-274.
Erting, L. (1991). Unpublished paper. Washington, DC: Kendall Demonstration Elementary School.
Ewoldt, C. (1994). Booksharing: Teachers and parents reading to deaf children. In A.D. Flurkey and R.J. Meyers, Eds., Under the whole language umbrella: Many cultures, many voices, pp. 331-342. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.
Ewoldt, C., Hoffmeister, R., & Israelite, N. (1992). Bilingual/bicultural education for deaf and hard of hearing students: A review of the literature on the effects of native sign language on minority language acquisition. Toronto: Ontario Ministry of Education.
Lartz, M.N., & Lestina, L.J. (1995). Strategies deaf mothers use when reading to their young deaf or hard of hearing children. American Annals of the Deaf, 140(4), 358-362.
Mather, S.A. (1989). Visually oriented teaching strategies with deaf preschool children. In C. Lucas, Ed., The sociolinguistics of the deaf community, pp. 165-187. New York, NY: Academic Press.
Maxwell, M. (1984). A deaf child's natural development of literacy. Sign Language Studies, 44, 191-224.
Rogers, D. (1989, Sept.-Oct.). Show me bedtime reading. Perspectives for Teachers of the Hearing Impaired, 8(1).
Schick, B. & Gale, E. (1995). Preschool deaf and hard of hearing students interactions during ASL and English storytelling. American Annals of the Deaf, 140(4), 363-370.
Schleper, D.R. (1995a). Reading to deaf children: Learning from deaf adults. Perspectives in Education and Deafness, 13(4), 4-8.
Schleper, D.R. (1995b). Read it again and again . . . and again. Perspectives in Education and Deafness, 14(2), 16-19, 24.
Stewart, D., Bonkowski, N. & Bennett, D. (1990). Considerations and implications when reading stories to young deaf children. Occasional Paper No. 13. East Lansing, MI: Institute for Research in Teaching, MSU.
Trelease, J. (1995). The read aloud handbook. NY: Penguin Books.
Van der Lem, T., & Timmerman, D. (1990). Joint picture book reading in signs: An interaction between parent and child. In Prillwitz, Siegmund, Vollhaber (Eds.), Sign language research and application: Proceedings of the international congress. Hamburg, March 23-25, 1990. Amsterdam: Signum.
Whitesell, K.M. (1991). Reading between the lines: How one deaf teacher demonstrates the reading process. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH.
For many years, educators have known that children who come from homes in which storybook reading takes place have an educational advantage over those who do not. These children are more likely to read before they are given formal instruction, and those who are not early readers are more likely to learn to read with ease when formal instruction does begin.
--Dorothy Strickland & Denny Taylor, 1989
Your arm must be getting very sore by now Greema!
