Phonetic approach?

[flip]

The teachers around here tells me that deaf kids learn to read and write best with the use of hearing aids/CI and speech. The reason is that written language is based on phonetic and sound. Explainations can be given in sign language, but learning to read and write with sign language only, is very hard, and only very bright students master this, by remembering how word looks like, instead of how they sound. So they focous a lot on speech and how different words sounds and to crack the code by knowing how words sounds.

Can someone tell me if this is empirically true? I suspect they says this because they do not master sign languagem fully, but I need to hear experiences from other people out there, and perhaps some papers on this? Is it possible to learn kids to read and write with sign language skills only? I suspect so and have ideas to learn them to write and read with the use of their first language, sign language, but have this uncertainity wether those theachers are right or wrong. I am not opposed to speech training, but I feel speech is speech, and not vital for literacy skills?

Would be really thankful for a reply to this one from someone.

 

[shel90]

It has been proven that deaf children from deaf families who use ASL at home master reading and writing skills at ease so it shows as long as the child has a strong first language whether it is in sign or spoken language, reading and writing is easier to master. If the child doesnt have a strong first language, then the phonetic or learning ASL later wont help as much...they will contine to struggle with literacy skills. I have see that first hand since becoming a teacher for the deaf 5 years ago.

 

[jillio]

The teachers around here tells me that deaf kids learn to read and write best with the use of hearing aids/CI and speech. The reason is that written language is based on phonetic and sound. Explainations can be given in sign language, but learning to read and write with sign language only, is very hard, and only very bright students master this, by remembering how word looks like, instead of how they sound. So they focous a lot on speech and how different words sounds and to crack the code by knowing how words sounds.

Can someone tell me if this is empirically true? I suspect they says this because they do not master sign languagem fully, but I need to hear experiences from other people out there, and perhaps some papers on this? Is it possible to learn kids to read and write with sign language skills only? I suspect so and have ideas to learn them to write and read with the use of their first language, sign language, but have this uncertainity wether those theachers are right or wrong. I am not opposed to speech training, but I feel speech is speech, and not vital for literacy skills?

Would be really thankful for a reply to this one from someone.

No,this is not empirically true. There are many cognitive paths tp literacy...phonetics being only one of them. Are you talking about teachers inthe mainstream who have no experience in deaf education? That sounds like something you would hear froma special education teacher who has miniimum traiining in the methods of deaf education.

Empirically, it has been shown that highest achieving students are exposed to both sign and speech. If you will go back and check the literacy rates for deaf students historically, you will see where this philosophy has had a negative impact on literacy in the deaf population.

 

[Interpretrator]

It has been proven that deaf children from deaf families who use ASL at home master reading and writing skills at ease so it shows as long as the child has a strong first language whether it is in sign or spoken language, reading and writing is easier to master. If the child doesnt have a strong first language, then the phonetic or learning ASL later wont help as much...they will contine to struggle with literacy skills. I have see that first hand since becoming a teacher for the deaf 5 years ago.

I second all of this.

There's a major problem in the whole oralism vs. sign debate which is that too often the kids being pulled in both directions do not have a strong first language. It's useless to talk about the efficacy of either method if the child does not first have a strong basis in language, be it English or ASL. Too often parents think as long as their kid has a CI or HA, he or she can function as a hearing person in terms of learning English without any additional help and I can say as someone working linguistically with deaf adults, the results are often extremely problematic. Same goes for the parents who think teaching their deaf child a few signs is enough to develop their language skills. It works (or, rather, DOESN'T work) both ways.

 

[flip]

It has been proven that deaf children from deaf families who use ASL at home master reading and writing skills at ease so it shows as long as the child has a strong first language whether it is in sign or spoken language, reading and writing is easier to master. If the child doesnt have a strong first language, then the phonetic or learning ASL later wont help as much...they will contine to struggle with literacy skills. I have see that first hand since becoming a teacher for the deaf 5 years ago.

Shel, that's so true. Those kids should perhaps have more focus on developing their 1st language skills, i.e. ASL literacy?

 

[flip]

No,this is not empirically true. There are many cognitive paths tp literacy...phonetics being only one of them. Are you talking about teachers inthe mainstream who have no experience in deaf education? That sounds like something you would hear froma special education teacher who has miniimum traiining in the methods of deaf education.

Empirically, it has been shown that highest achieving students are exposed to both sign and speech. If you will go back and check the literacy rates for deaf students historically, you will see where this philosophy has had a negative impact on literacy in the deaf population.

Those teachers actually work in a deaf school, and say that both sign and speech is important.. But their sign language are a bit crappy, for example, many of them have problems with large group conversations in sign language(this might prove that sign language is not that easy as some people think). But speech is something they master very well.


How does a successful english class for deaf people look like? If students should be exposed to both speech and sign, should then english class primary be the responsibility of a hearing teacher with fluent sign language skills?

I read somewhere that indian teachers in mexico had a better success rate learning spanish to their students, than spanish mexican teachers with better spanish literacy skills and OK indian language skills. Is this the same for deaf people, or is it not possible to compare due to the importance of exposure of both speech and signing for literacy skills for deaf people(Indians are not bimodal bilingual as deafs). Have someone tried to see if this is true for deaf people, too? A deaf teacher with darth vader voice, teaching deaf kids in english, compared to a hearie with speech skills and ok sign language with english/hearing accent

Hope I am not asking too heavy questions.

 

[deafskeptic]

I don't think phonics is the only way to learn to read and write. If phonics were the only way, why do I always bomb the phonics section of the hearing SAT?

 

[jillio]

I second all of this.

There's a major problem in the whole oralism vs. sign debate which is that too often the kids being pulled in both directions do not have a strong first language. It's useless to talk about the efficacy of either method if the child does not first have a strong basis in language, be it English or ASL. Too often parents think as long as their kid has a CI or HA, he or she can function as a hearing person in terms of learning English without any additional help and I can say as someone working linguistically with deaf adults, the results are often extremely problematic. Same goes for the parents who think teaching their deaf child a few signs is enough to develop their language skills. It works (or, rather, DOESN'T work) both ways.

AMEN! Very well put, Interpetator!

 

[jillio]

Those teachers actually work in a deaf school, and say that both sign and speech is important.. But their sign language are a bit crappy, for example, many of them have problems with large group conversations in sign language(this might prove that sign language is not that easy as some people think). But speech is something they master very well.


How does a successful english class for deaf people look like? If students should be exposed to both speech and sign, should then english class primary be the responsibility of a hearing teacher with fluent sign language skills?

I read somewhere that indian teachers in mexico had a better success rate learning spanish to their students, than spanish mexican teachers with better spanish literacy skills and OK indian language skills. Is this the same for deaf people, or is it not possible to compare due to the importance of exposure of both speech and signing for literacy skills for deaf people(Indians are not bimodal bilingual as deafs). Have someone tried to see if this is true for deaf people, too? A deaf teacher with darth vader voice, teaching deaf kids in english, compared to a hearie with speech skills and ok sign language with english/hearing accent

Hope I am not asking too heavy questions.

I don't know off hand of any research comparing success rates of the two groups that you want to compare specifically, but I'll on the cognitive processes in word recognition and reading comprehension inthe deaf populations as compared to hearing.

 

[sr171soars]

Now, this is very interesting to me. I'm an extremely big proponent of phonics as a tool once the basics of speech have been established. In my opinion, there is no better way to learn how to read and write in English plus other phonetical languages. Obviously, this wouldn't work too well with a language like Chinese.

What I don't quite understand, is how phonetics is any good for any deaf person who truly can't hear. It is one thing if they were HOH but another thing if they can't hear sounds. I looked up a couple of definitions (see links)

Phonics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

NRRF - Essay - Explicit or Implicit Phonics: "Therein Lies the Rub"

There is a relationship between sounds and phonics. One cannot apparently learn the latter without the former.

This is where I can see the arguments in this case for deaf children at least establish a strong language (such as ASL) to get a basis for learning to read and write in English. That makes sense to me when put in this context. Umm...learned something today!

 

[jillio]

Now, this is very interesting to me. I'm an extremely big proponent of phonics as a tool once the basics of speech have been established. In my opinion, there is no better way to learn how to read and write in English plus other phonetical languages. Obviously, this wouldn't work too well with a language like Chinese.

What I don't quite understand, is how phonetics is any good for any deaf person who truly can't hear. It is one thing if they were HOH but another thing if they can't hear sounds. I looked up a couple of definitions (see links)

Phonics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

NRRF - Essay - Explicit or Implicit Phonics: "Therein Lies the Rub"

There is a relationship between sounds and phonics. One cannot apparently learn the latter without the former.

This is where I can see the arguments in this case for deaf children at least establish a strong language (such as ASL) to get a basis for learning to read and write in English. That makes sense to me when put in this context. Umm...learned something today!

Why wouldn't it work well with a language like Chinese? ALL spoken languages are phonetically based. Thephonetics are simply specific to that particular langauge.

But just because one can hear, doesn't necesarily make the phonetic approach the best one. Manyy, many hearing children are unable to master reading through this approach, because English from spoken to written form is phonetically inconsistent in the extreme.

 

[sr171soars]

Why wouldn't it work well with a language like Chinese? ALL spoken languages are phonetically based. Thephonetics are simply specific to that particular langauge.

Written Chinese is not phonetical in the sense that English and other languages are and thus would be a poor language to attempt to approach it from that standpoint. Essentially, written Chinese was originally setup to indicate a word/idea/concept not sounds. Japanese is actually phonetical and it comes from Chinese roots.

Written Chinese - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

But just because one can hear, doesn't necesarily make the phonetic approach the best one. Manyy, many hearing children are unable to master reading through this approach, because English from spoken to written form is phonetically inconsistent in the extreme.

Read my links about phonics in my prior post. The greatest good the greatest number. Most people tend to work well with the phonetical approach. There are always those who have trouble with it. As a tool, it is the best one to get the relationship between sounds and letters and on to meanings. The educators have tried all kinds of other things thinking that phonics was outdated and served its purpose. After that fiasco, they finally had to come back in full circle by coming back to it as the main tool plus implementing some other methodologies for those that had trouble with it.

I no doubt that English has its issues but so does any language that is spoken. Some are "cleaner" than others. But that is no reason to blast English. No one person was responsible for how it came out.

 

[ismi]

Actually, written Chinese often is taught phonetically to native Chinese speakers now. There have been various transliteration systems used to render spoken Chinese in Latin characters (the ones we use for English). The current standard is pinyin, which is simply the 26 character latin alphabet plus some accent marks to indicate tone. (Often these marks are left out for convenience; sometimes they're replaced by numbers that indicate the tone of the preceding vowel.)

Pinyin was originally developed to give Chinese children (and foreign students of Mandarin) a bridge between the spoken Mandarin they already knew, and the written language. Students still learn the character-based written language, but most romanized written Mandarin precedes it.

 

[sr171soars]

Actually, written Chinese often is taught phonetically to native Chinese speakers now. There have been various transliteration systems used to render spoken Chinese in Latin characters (the ones we use for English). The current standard is pinyin, which is simply the 26 character latin alphabet plus some accent marks to indicate tone. (Often these marks are left out for convenience; sometimes they're replaced by numbers that indicate the tone of the preceding vowel.)

Pinyin was originally developed to give Chinese children (and foreign students of Mandarin) a bridge between the spoken Mandarin they already knew, and the written language. Students still learn the character-based written language, but most romanized written Mandarin precedes it.

Ahh! Thank you! I didn't know that part. I just knew one couldn't even claim to teach Chinese phonetically with its "characters". I guess the Chinese figured there has to be a better way...

 

[shel90]

Written Chinese is not phonetical in the sense that English and other languages are and thus would be a poor language to attempt to approach it from that standpoint. Essentially, written Chinese was originally setup to indicate a word/idea/concept not sounds. Japanese is actually phonetical and it comes from Chinese roots.

Written Chinese - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia




Read my links about phonics in my prior post. The greatest good the greatest number. Most people tend to work well with the phonetical approach. There are always those who have trouble with it. As a tool, it is the best one to get the relationship between sounds and letters and on to meanings. The educators have tried all kinds of other things thinking that phonics was outdated and served its purpose. After that fiasco, they finally had to come back in full circle by coming back to it as the main tool plus implementing some other methodologies for those that had trouble with it.

I no doubt that English has its issues but so does any language that is spoken. Some are "cleaner" than others. But that is no reason to blast English. No one person was responsible for how it came out.

My class this year is so much more oral than any class I have ever had. They rely heavily on phonics to identify sight word voabular and how to spell new words. It has been very interesting to observe that from my 4 students..1 has a CI who benefits so much from it, one is hoh, 1 is from a deaf family and 1 has been going to my school since she was a baby and has a strong L1 in ASL and now learning how to apply phonetics in helping her to read and write even though she is profoundly deaf. It is soooo fascinating for me! I love it!

 

[sr171soars]

My class this year is so much more oral than any class I have ever had. They rely heavily on phonics to identify sight word voabular and how to spell new words. It has been very interesting to observe that from my 4 students..1 has a CI who benefits so much from it, one is hoh, 1 is from a deaf family and 1 has been going to my school since she was a baby and has a strong L1 in ASL and now learning how to apply phonetics in helping her to read and write even though she is profoundly deaf. It is soooo fascinating for me! I love it!

Help me here. How do you teach the phonetical approach to the last two students? I can see the first two making the connection between sounds and phonetics. I have a much harder time seeing this for the later two students.

 

[shel90]

Help me here. How do you teach the phonetical approach to the last two students? I can see the first two making the connection between sounds and phonetics. I have a much harder time seeing this for the later two students.

The speech therapist at my work did a great job with one of them. The other one is new and is from a deaf family but because she has a strong L1 in ASL, she is able to understand the purpose of phonetics relating to reading and writing and is able to recognize the importance of it as opposed to those who are language delayed who have absulotely no understanding of what works around them. This is an 8 year old..my god..the difference of having a strong L1 language makes. I finally have a class that is not language delayed for the first time in 5 years and teaching has never been so much easier!!!! I am soooo amazed how much these little kids understand simply because they have a strong L1 in ASL...thsi is what I want for all deaf children and I am sick of the oral only approach depriving these children of a full access to a language.


BTW , I was trained using the phonetical approach to reading and writing despite having no ASL, no CIs and a profound severe hearing loss in both ears since birth. How come I was able to understand the concept of phonetics at such a young age makes me wonder...sorry,I wont have the answer to that cuz I have no idea myself...

 

[deafskeptic]

I remember teaching myself how to read because I always used images to stand for the printed word. For example, a picture of a house would represent the house.

I notice that I often use signs for words that I learned as a teen and an adult but not always. Take for example the word Ecclesiastical: I image either the sign for church and then the sign for relate or a image of a stained glass window which represents churches in general with the sign relate overlapping it. It's not a perfect transalation but that's the best I could come up with for this word. I have no idea how to pronounce this word!

I do have some understanding of phonics but phonics has always been difficult for me. For example, when I was a mail clerk and it was my job to handle bills of lading (I worked for an intermodal company that moved freight), I remember asking why they used the letters mt on the bills of lading. The hearing told me that's because it sounded like the word empty.

 

[flip]

Thanks for inputs. It cleared out some things. I myself learned both by phonics and remembering words, but feel that research outcomes and methology perhaps would be a bit different if it was a deafs world, as much of this research is carried out by hearies. Also feel that the speech part is a bit overdone many places that call themselves Bi-Bi. A bit overdone is something I can live with, the challenge is to notice when it's overdone so much it is delaying or hurting seriously. But at least you have convinced me for the moment, that speech not is hurting and can help when developing literacy. I read through some of the recent "flamewars" threads here, as I haven't been at alldeaf.com for a long time, and found some answers to my questions there, too.

"Literacy—It All Connects", seems interesting, and have ordered it, thanks for bringing up that paper, Jillio!

 

[loml]

There are many cognitive paths tp literacy...phonetics being only one of them

These many cognitive paths, are you refererencing from a deaf ed. perspective or?? Could you direct me to a source for these approaches please. I would like to read them.


thnxs
7t8s2s3s