Part 7: The Challenge of Teaching Literacy

Literacy can be defined as the ability to effectively read and write.  There are several models of teaching reading comprehension that all teachers learn in their training.  These models, according to Paul in Literacy and Deafness are: Bottom-up; Top-Down; and Interactive.

"The Bottom-up Model progressed from the smallest unit of reading (such as "a") upwards to larger words.  The emphasis is on the identification of words and their parts (phonemes and morphemes).  It starts with letters and ends up at the top with comprehension of reading by the student.

Top-down Models begin at the "top" of the readerís head with predictions and inferences (almost like pre-reading strategies) and proceeds downward to the text to confirm the predictions and inferences or even to create new one.  The reading process is considered a language learning process in which the reader uses the text to build from.

Interactive Models views the reading process as interactive.  Good readers integrate information from the text with their own knowledge (linguistic base) to get or create meaning.  This model uses parts of both of the previous models."

Schools generally select a well designed reading program, such as a basal program published by a company and use this programís scope and sequence throughout the early reading years (kindergarten to about grade 4).  All the skills necessary for reading, reading comprehension and writing are taught in a progressive manner with each skill and sub skill building upon the former.  By the end of fourth grade, the student should have mastered the necessary literacy skills.  After fourth grade, the student is expected to apply these skills to content areas in order to progress in learning.  Basal reading programs employ either a Bottom-up, Top-down or Interactive Model.

Whole language, another approach to literacy, generally employs an Interactive Model.  Since children acquire skills with the process of decoding and elements of literacy through contact and experience with print, having the print in context is easier than in isolation and presents the reader with good practice.  This is one of the great benefits of whole language and, in particular, the use of predictable books.  Predictable books make the task of decoding easier because the number of possibilities is reduced.  These books also incorporate the devices and patterns necessary for making decoding easier to master.  In addition, childrensí literature in general is incorporated in whole language approaches.  This could be positive in the sense the student is exposed to good writing, literacy and ideas; however, it could be negative because there is not a progressive, structured approach that makes sure skills and subskills are not missed.  Much record keeping is dependent on the teacher.  Whatever approach or model the teacher uses, it requires the teacher to be expert in it.

For classroom instruction, young readers need to encounter print that is meaningful.  That means that the concepts are familiar.  The teacher of the deaf must provide the language basis prior to the reading experience in order for the reading encounter to be worthwhile and meaningful. (Adams, 1990).  Generally, these experiences take place before the reading activity.  If a field trip or special experience is provided before the reading activity, the deaf student has an experimental base of personal knowledge to which they can attach new vocabulary in the text.  In essence, the student can hand his new language and knowledge on already created skeleton of linguistic information.  It becomes the daunting task of the teacher of the deaf to be providing meaningful pre-reading experiences to create the language necessary to begin the reading task.  Really,
This is the opposite of regular education in which a field trip or experience takes place during or at the end of the learning experience or unit.

Deaf students need to have some experience with print prior to entering school.  As mentioned earlier, the early intervention /preschool program is important in establishing this early meaningful contact with print (i.e. environmental print such as menus, signs, etc.). For deaf children, building sight vocabulary begins with the semantically significant (meaningful) words, that is, nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc. (McAnally, 1994).

Often a separate, structured language program such as Appletree benefits the child who is deaf because language patterns and words are presented in this exact approach.  Structured language programs have their pros and cons; some critics report that structured language removes creativity from the literacy process.  However, overall, the benefits of structured language can be very beneficial to certain deaf students.  Some publishing companies, such as Dormac, even offer a structured language program as an accompaniment to a controlled basal program.  A controlled basal program might combine a high interest-low vocabulary text in a repetitive approach.  It can be very useful but also boring.  This is another challenge for the teacher!

Sight vocabulary and reading can be accomplished independently, with a group, at home or in large group instruction.  The important thing is to keep the student progressing in order to build decoding skills.

Decoding can be defined as the process of moving visual perceptions of a printed word to the idea (cognitive).  Decoding is a composite of different skills for analyzing various aspects of text.  Decoding skills include: visual and auditory perception; discrimination; identification; classification; sequencing; association; analysis; memory; prediction; problem solving; PLUS adding the word to the studentís existing basis of language and knowledge in a meaningful way. (Adams, 1990).  This is the primary challenge of the early elementary years.

Higher level comprehension, after approximately grade four, involves the use and understanding of the English language features.  Typically, hearing students have this understanding intuitively from hearing the language being spoken but students who are deaf do not (Adams, 1990).  According to Paul, "higher levels of reading comprehension (literacy), students need:  advanced organizers (clues, charts, etc.); content analysis (relationship of words to the text); semantic webbing (mapping); familiarity with figurative language and idioms; ability to make predictions; and, the ability to make inferences".

Many deaf students approach reading without these skills.  They may have mastered the skills presented prior to fourth or fifth grade taught through one of the literacy models but cannot proceed due to the difficulties mastering the high level comprehension skills which are much more abstract and dependent on language (mentioned in the previous paragraph).  According to Paul and Quigley (1990), the predominance of students who are deaf never proceed past the fourth or fifth grade reading level for these reasons.  It is again the challenge of the secondary level teacher to present content material in class (history, science, etc.) realizing the literacy level of the students who are deaf may only meet fourth or fifth grade reading and writing levels.