How do deaf people learn to read?

[Rose Immortal]

No, you're not weird. I was the same way. I couldn't understand why in the world teachers gave kindergarten spelling tests, but it wasn't kindergarten spelling tests to the hearing students. It was a bore when teachers would review the grades and spellings afterwards.

LOL, I kinda felt the same way! I didn't realize how rare it was until when I was in 4th grade and made 2nd place in the state spelling bee. The next year, in 5th grade, my teacher told me I'd had an average of 99.5 on homework and 99.6 on tests for the year in spelling. The way she'd said it, I'm not sure she'd seen anything like that before.

 

[Liza]

I'm not sure how I "learned" how to read, but I think I learned by memory association. I read a lot as a kid. I never learned that phonetic stuff, and didn't fare so well in speech therapy.

 

[Bodhika]

A couple of articles...

“How Do Profoundly Deaf Children Learn to Read?” Susan Goldin-Meadow (University of Chicago) ; Rachel I. Mayberry (McGill University)

Sign Language Studies n75 p97-112 sum 1992
“Deafness & Literacy: Why Can’t Sam Read?” ; Erting, Carol J

 

[untitled]

Well, now that I think about it, I can't really remember. I remember going to see a speech therapist at school. I could speak, not really well(and still can't speak very well). I just remember a lot of word and phonics cards and pictures cards. I also remember learning to lip read. The speech person knew some ASL and I knew a little bit too, so we communicated pretty well. Something I really remember is when some girl with her group tried to get me to talk and I said something and they started giggling and I didn't want to talk anymore. I got over it eventually, but anyway, I don't think it is at all very different from the way hearing people learn how to read.

And @Angel, I remember doing the hand thing sometimes too. Sometimes she would point to her mouth and give me a mirror so I could see myself try to copy her.

 

[aRachel]

And then some of us are just quirky.

I didn't learn to speak properly until I learned to read...I couldn't tell the difference between a question addressed to me, and the statement I was supposed to give in return, for instance. I also couldn't tell the difference between "he" and "she" and a lot of other stuff.

Thankfully my mother was an early childhood education major, and recognized very early on that I needed some sort of intervention. So at 2 1/2, she started teaching me to read. For some reason, seeing sentences written down got everything through to me. To this day I still think in written words first, and only then does my mind read the sentence "aloud". I didn't understand this was unusual, when I was little...I couldn't understand why other children had trouble on spelling tests because all the teacher had to do was say the word and it appeared in my mind automatically upon hearing it, just like that. Taking a spelling test was almost like a copying exercise for me.

I'm not sure why this was...my mom thinks it was my ADHD, that I simply did not pay attention to verbal communication for long enough times to get it. Maybe coupling the spoken word with the written word made the experience "demanding" enough of my mind that I was fully engaged with it? I don't know. I just know I'm weird.

The way that you learn has to do with how your brain is wired. Some people are visual learners, others learn by hearing, and still others learn best by doing.

It sounds to me like your brain is wired to learn by seeing. When you couple the seeing of a word with the concept behind it, your brain made the connections.

I used to know a girl who could hear a song and play it on the piano, she learned everything by hearing it. I like to see things too. If I don't see the definition with it, it takes me a lot longer to put it together.

 

[BecLak]

"I didn't learn to speak properly until I learned to read...I couldn't tell the difference between a question addressed to me, and the statement I was supposed to give in return, for instance. I also couldn't tell the difference between "he" and "she" and a lot of other stuff."

You are not the only one. I too, didn't learn to speak properly until I learned to read. I remember vividly when I was five or six, seeing the words and realising I had it all wrong. I went to intensive speech therapy as well.

 

[WeeBeastie]

I don't believe you read my post clearly, but my question is to you is how are you able to hear the sounds of each letter to be able to produce the entire word when you are learning how to read?....If you just use your eyes to read, then how do you really know you're saying the word correctly? most hearing kids use their ears to hear the sounds, do you hear the sounds that comes out of your parent's mouth, teacher? or using phonics? to hear you recognize the sounds of each letter or words?


Kids dont just look at the word and just guess, they need to recognize the sounds of the letter by being able to produce the words out correctly then they are able to read

My little one is in kindergarten, we are to teach him the sounds of each letter in order for him to recognize on how to produce the entire word correctly, for example if one of the word say " fish " he will have to recognize the " f " sound and be able to try to say the word " fish " by reading each letter and knowing the sound of them by being able to produce the entire word in order to be able to read that's how kids read, not just by looking at the word otherwise the kids will have a diffcult time learning how to read ....


My little one is starting to recognize the sounds of each letter, sometimes he having diffcult time saying the entire word all together, but he will in time once he recognize every sounds of each letter, then he would be able to read the words in the book without feeling frustrated, sounds do help children be able to produce the word correctly without having to guess it....At my son's school they are using phonics and it does help them develop their reading skills... .

Many deaf people don't need to learn what a word sounds like to learn to read it. They learn words, not sounds, and associate those words with signs. There is no sound. Phonetics are not used and not at all important, sometimes even considered a waste of time. No, they don't just look and guess. They learn the vocabulary. They learn this arrangement of letters = this meaning... just like they learned a certain hand motion = this meaning in sign.

If you don't use speech and can not hear it, what good is it to try to learn how a word sounds? Don't even try to factor in all the silent letters and quirky spellings in the English language.

The great thing about this method, IMHO, is that the kids focus on what the word means and how to use it, rather than how it sounds.

I also have a little one, as you can see in my signature. She doesn't take speech and will not be relying on it to learn to read. She can only hear about 8-10 phonetic sounds anyway. Rather, she's getting extra help becoming fluent in ASL so that when it's time to learn all those big, bad vocabulary words, she'll have a language to be taught in.

As long as English is complete in it's written form, there's no need to use sound to learn it.