The first thing is that she is never in a class bigger than 6 kids with a teacher and an aide. When they do reading, it is one on one.
They do a lot of homework that is focused on being able to discriminate all sounds. Since she is using phonics to learn to read, she has to be able to hear the difference between the sounds.
They also do everything in their power to eliminate all background noise.
They also explain every single new word that is introduced. Like, if they are reading a story and the book uses the word, humongous, the teacher stops and asks all the kids if they know what that word means. If they say yes, she asks them to explain it to the rest of the class. These are words that average hearing 1st graders would know with no problem, but that maybe the deaf kids don't know.
For spelling tests, they also ask the kids not to just learn how to spell the word, but they also have to use the word (themselves) in a sentence. (The teacher says "tell me about round", and the child uses round in a sentence they make up).
Also, every morning they do a hearing aid, CI, and FM system check. Everyone knows how the devices work, and how to troubleshoot them.
