Teaching Reading

[faire_jour]

The brain fills those in naturally.

If this is about the fact that Deaf people have a tendency to drop prepositions and indicating verbs from their sentence, well...

Newsflash:

A lot of foreign students struggle with that as well. Also, hearing people who speak English naturally as their first language, but emote or gesture a lot, also drop indicating verbs and prepositions from their speech pattern and writing as well. As long the child is reading constantly, he will learn the importance of indicating verbs, definite articles and prepositions. Even in everyday speech, people have a tendency to drop things that are normally included in formal writing and when they speak outloud from the texts they read.

It is the ones that are well-read that have a good understanding of the written language. HEARING people who write like they speak are often not well-read, and it shows when they drop components of the English language in their writing.

So, let me get this right, the advice is....have her read? SHE CAN'T READ YET.

Step 1?

Here is a excerpt from one of her early reading books:

"I am Diz" "I am Nat" "I like running" "I can jump." "I will run to the store" "I will jump and run." "I can run and jump in the sun."


She has no concept for "am" or "the".

 

[faire_jour]

The brain fills those in naturally.

If this is about the fact that Deaf people have a tendency to drop prepositions and indicating verbs from their sentence, well...

Newsflash:

A lot of foreign students struggle with that as well. Also, hearing people who speak English naturally as their first language, but emote or gesture a lot, also drop indicating verbs and prepositions from their speech pattern and writing as well. As long the child is reading constantly, he will learn the importance of indicating verbs, definite articles and prepositions. Even in everyday speech, people have a tendency to drop things that are normally included in formal writing and when they speak outloud from the texts they read.

It is the ones that are well-read that have a good understanding of the written language. HEARING people who write like they speak are often not well-read, and it shows when they drop components of the English language in their writing.

Oh, and no, I don't find it acceptable that she read as well a foriegn reader. If reading is to be her only access to the majority language, it needs to be her strongest skill.

 

[somedeafdudefromPNW]

* sighs *

I was tutoring a Korean once, and she always assumed "am" always follow "I" and "the" always come before nouns. When she read English, it came out as (using your examples):

"I Diz" "I Nat" "I like running," "I jump," "I run to store," "I jump run" and so on. That what was going on in her mind. She just filled in "am" and "the" based on repetitive experience.

Psst, she's now considered as fluent three years later.

 

[faire_jour]

* sighs *

I was tutoring a Korean once, and she always assumed "am" always follow "I" and "the" always come before nouns. When she read English, it came out as (using your examples):

"I Diz" "I Nat" "I like running," "I jump," "I run to store," "I jump run" and so on. That what was going on in her mind. She just filled in "am" and "the" based on repetitive experience.

Psst, she's now considered as fluent three years later.

Nope. I don't think it ok to *assume* a child is going to figure it out. "The" doesn't always come before a noun, it is only if the noun is a specific item. "Hand me A book" vs. "hand me THE book"

 

[somedeafdudefromPNW]

Nope. I don't think it ok to *assume* a child is going to figure it out. "The" doesn't always come before a noun, it is only if the noun is a specific item. "Hand me A book" vs. "hand me THE book"

Adults really need to stop treating kids like if they are stupid or incapable of understanding things. The way they perceive the world is completely different than how us adults view it. Most of what kids learn is not through rules, but rather exposure.

If she says, reads or writes: "hand me the book" when there is a pile of books, you ask "What book?" with a confused gesture. That will correct her to saying "Hand me a book," so when she start using the proper format, then you show that you understood her clearly.

Hope that provide insight in how my grandmother raised me.

 

[Gma]

I don't understand. So, I have the word "dog" in a book. I show her the word "dog" and then I fingerspell D-O-G, and then show her the word again. How does that help her understand what that word means? She sees that it is spelled D-O-G, but it still doesn't have meaning.

faire_jour, Have ever seen a child's book for early readers. Most have pictures and the short sentences on the page represents what takes place in the picture. I wasn't asking about teach a child with no language how to read just issues I'm having with some of the language in conjunction with ASL.

 

[shel90]

I don't understand. So, I have the word "dog" in a book. I show her the word "dog" and then I fingerspell D-O-G, and then show her the word again. How does that help her understand what that word means? She sees that it is spelled D-O-G, but it still doesn't have meaning.

Show the picture or better yet, show a real live dog if one is around.

 

[shel90]

* sighs *

I was tutoring a Korean once, and she always assumed "am" always follow "I" and "the" always come before nouns. When she read English, it came out as (using your examples):

"I Diz" "I Nat" "I like running," "I jump," "I run to store," "I jump run" and so on. That what was going on in her mind. She just filled in "am" and "the" based on repetitive experience.

Psst, she's now considered as fluent three years later.

I have seen the same with many of our deaf students and even with foreign deaf children.

That's why kids need to read and read and read..

 

[shel90]

So, let me get this right, the advice is....have her read? SHE CAN'T READ YET.

Step 1?

Here is a excerpt from one of her early reading books:

"I am Diz" "I am Nat" "I like running" "I can jump." "I will run to the store" "I will jump and run." "I can run and jump in the sun."


She has no concept for "am" or "the".

All kids, even hearing kids, have to start at the beginning. And the first thing you have to accomplish is teaching them that the printed word is nothing more than a symbol representing the thing being talked about. Just like the sign is a symbol and the spoken word is a symbol. Several of my students were taught to read using visual cues only through the use of flash cards that had a picture, a print word, and a sign on them. They make the connection of symbols naturally by being given visual cues. They were reading by the time he got to kindergarten. The key was that he had a strong L1 language. Without it, a kid can’t intuit the symbolic function of language, and they can’t transfer it to reading skills.

 

[shel90]

Adults really need to stop treating kids like if they are stupid or incapable of understanding things. The way they perceive the world is completely different than how us adults view it. Most of what kids learn is not through rules, but rather exposure.

If she says, reads or writes: "hand me the book" when there is a pile of books, you ask "What book?" with a confused gesture. That will correct her to saying "Hand me a book," so when she start using the proper format, then you show that you understood her clearly.

Hope that provide insight in how my grandmother raised me.

 

[loml]

Is being able to read at a post-doc level is proof enough for you? I am really tired of the notion that one needs to know phonics in order to read. All that matters is knowing the grammatical rules and concepts.

I do not recall asking for proof of anything from you.

Are you SERIOUS? Simple. As long they have the basis of the language, they should be able to use the dictionary to look up the definition. I highly doubt ANYONE who doesn't know how to read English would be able to give you a solid answer. Hell, even the ones whose primary language is English would need to use the dictionary anyway.

Yes, I was serious. Being able to find a definition in a dictionary (if one knows how to use one, which isn't always the case), is not a guarantee to understanding what the words in the definition mean.

So why are you nit-picking?

I was simply asking a question. It is not my intention to have you perceive this as "nit-picking".

 

[Gma]

Dr. Merrill - just because a person in authority says that data proves something works does not make it so. Being the president of Gallaudet doesn’t make him a great leader or right. I do agree with his view on early intervention and that every method of language acquisition is not necessarily suited for every child.

Deaf were once thought to be dumb. Had a friend in Florida whose daughter was given an IQ tests orally without the examiner using an interpreter. The girl used and uses ASL. She didn't do well. Data proved her dumb….or was she? Nope, she had above average intelligence and went on to graduate from Gallaudet College.

 

[deafskeptic]

The brain fills those in naturally.

If this is about the fact that Deaf people have a tendency to drop prepositions and indicating verbs from their sentence, well...

Newsflash:

A lot of foreign students struggle with that as well. Also, hearing people who speak English naturally as their first language, but emote or gesture a lot, also drop indicating verbs and prepositions from their speech pattern and writing as well. As long the child is reading constantly, he will learn the importance of indicating verbs, definite articles and prepositions. Even in everyday speech, people have a tendency to drop things that are normally included in formal writing and when they speak outloud from the texts they read.

It is the ones that are well-read that have a good understanding of the written language. HEARING people who write like they speak are often not well-read, and it shows when they drop components of the English language in their writing.

Hmm. Hadn't known that about the hearing. As for hearing writing like they speak not being widely read, I've noticed that as well.

 

[loml]

I'm hearing and it was of no use to me. Taught whole word. When my older children where in school they assisted each other when it came to phonics. In fact, when my daughter recently had some in her first grade class I got the dictionary out and looked up the words to see what had the long and short sounds they were seeking. It may help to be able to read phonically, but not required.

Auditory memory is useful and my grandson does use it, but I would like for him to have a language which is ASL and then English which I hope will have the same fluency.

Thank you for your reply. Best wishes.

 

[faire_jour]

Adults really need to stop treating kids like if they are stupid or incapable of understanding things. The way they perceive the world is completely different than how us adults view it. Most of what kids learn is not through rules, but rather exposure.

If she says, reads or writes: "hand me the book" when there is a pile of books, you ask "What book?" with a confused gesture. That will correct her to saying "Hand me a book," so when she start using the proper format, then you show that you understood her clearly.

Hope that provide insight in how my grandmother raised me.

I never even implied that kids are stupid, but they don't know what they don't know. I do NOT think it is safe to assume kids will just "pick it up", when it comes to reading.

She would be SIGNING "give-me" "book", so there would be no "a" or "the", that is the whole point! How can she be exposed to the difference when there is no sign for those words?

 

[somedeafdudefromPNW]

Thank you. I have been working with parents that have children with autistic spectrum disorders (ranging from full-blown autism, Asperger's to ADD and ADHD.) Ironically, a lot of the techniques used in Bi-Bi education are also used in educating people with the above disorders.

I know deafness and autism are not related, but I am merely only interested in the techniques involved in improving language skills. I know one person is having better luck teaching her boyfriend's son written Latin first, then Greek, then French... in combination with ASL for real-world communication, then jumping into written English than it was to try and head into spoken English head-first. Of course, his problem is that he couldn't understand English because there are more exceptions than rules due to the fact English assimilated so many grammatical rules from other languages.

I remember talking to an linguist that specialise in English, and he said most people just memorise English if they don't have any experience with the root languages that are: Spanish, French, German, Latin, Greek and Danish. Each of these languages have rules spelled out for their speakers, but most of our rules are for the most part "unwritten." Most people are not even aware of the unwritten rules of English, so for a lot of native speakers, it is just pure memory. So he understand us Deaf people and our struggle with hearing people's limited point of view regarding education. So, in our case, he agreed with many of the techniques that my grandmother used when she was teaching ESL at the local college.

 

[shel90]

Thank you. I have been working with parents that have children with autistic spectrum disorders (ranging from full-blown autism, Asperger's to ADD and ADHD.) Ironically, a lot of the techniques used in Bi-Bi education are also used in educating people with the above disorders.

I know deafness and autism are not related, but I am merely only interested in the techniques involved in improving language skills. I know one person is having better luck teaching her boyfriend's son written Latin first, then Greek, then French... in combination with ASL for real-world communication, then jumping into written English than it was to try and head into spoken English head-first. Of course, his problem is that he couldn't understand English because there are more exceptions than rules due to the fact English assimilated so many grammatical rules from other languages.

I remember talking to an linguist that specialise in English, and he said most people just memorise English if they don't have any experience with the root languages that are: Spanish, French, German, Latin, Greek and Danish. Each of these languages have rules spelled out for their speakers, but most of our rules are for the most part "unwritten." Most people are not even aware of the unwritten rules of English, so for a lot of native speakers, it is just pure memory. So he understand us Deaf people and our struggle with hearing people's limited point of view regarding education. So, in our case, he agreed with many of the techniques that my grandmother used when she was teaching ESL at the local college.

Count me in...I totally understand.