Early Literacy Development - Essay Example

Early Literacy Development Names Institution Affiliation Introduction Globally, deafness is a mysterious disability because of the low incidence and prevalence associated with the deafness. The victims may be able to hear small bits of sound but may not be able to process into anything meaningful. Hearing impairment comes along with other health complications such as retardation, delayed speech and learning difficulties. Education for the deaf has followed a curriculum developed by hearing educators who discouraged visual, body signals and rallied for spoken and text-based literacy (Barnard & Glynn, 2003, p. 54). Other forms of literacy such as the American Sign Language (ASL) have recently been integrated into the curriculum. The literacy levels of the deaf have constantly remained much lower than the normal hearing. There has been no clear-cut about which level the deaf should precede in education alongside the hearing children. It seems less expensive to integrate them into the hearing student classes and also provides them with the normal models of speech and language. On the other hand, deaf students appear to do well in the segregated environment and receive the education that perfectly suits their abilities. The students can get specially trained teachers and special facilities. There are different strategies in place for teaching the deaf. Sign language has been used for decades as a first language and the language of reading and writing as the second language. The bi-lingual education has also been used as a mode of communication. The sign language is a very important language in the lives of most deaf people and varies from each other just as the spoken language does. Literacy skills of the hearing impaired students can be enhanced through sign language and spoken based methods. The integration of teaching spoken language should not compromise the sign language as their first language. These languages represent two different cultures as well as an alternative way of thinking and perceiving the world. These helps the children to have bicultural and multilingual advantages that is good for their existence and integration into the society. The spoken language relies on the Childs ability to hear and the use of written information from various sources. The spoken language skills are multidimensional, and this means they may not be able to comprehend all forms of written scripts (Brueggemann, 2004, p. 43). Though it is hard for anyone to be literate in all fields, everyone not sparing the deaf should access written form of knowledge. Deaf people or hard hearing students lack the access to the written resources and opportunities to participate in the meaningful discussion of the information. It is very expensive and not economically feasible to provide visual materials that have the same information as written materials. Hiring interpreters to translate the written form of information to the deaf is very expensive. Patterns of reading development Sign language is the preferred language in many instances. The sign language is easier to understand as it only focuses on the subject words in the sentence. Other learning methods such as the Signed Exact English require prior understanding of English grammar which naturally born deaf students lack. Pidgin Sign English relies upon he common understanding of hand and body gestures. American Sign Language (ASL) stresses the main objects in the sentence that are very brief and concise (Easterbrooks & Beal-Alvarez, 2013, p. 32). Facial expressions allows the person to communicate clearly, this clearly shows the deaf can show their emotions ad thoughts more clearly than with the sign language. Communication challenges of people with conductive hearing loss have difficulties in hearing soft and loud sounds as well as understanding. The sensorineural hearing loss may interfere with the integration of soft and loud sounds depending upon the degree of hearing loss. The National Association of Education Progress states that students must be able to read, analyze what he/she reads at grade level. Reading is a skill developed after cognitive, language and emotional development. The ability to understand and comprehend a written language is a framework that results from literacy skills by the time students attain the school age. Language development is learned from conversations that take place near the children and not teaching them directly how to speak (French, 1999, p. 94). Expressive language is the bedrock of written language comprehension as the ability to understand the common sound system is enhanced. This principle of relating sound to writing relies on the knowledge of the spoken language to aide reading. These clearly indicate the challenges that are hearing impaired children are placed at by not having the complete access to developing the ability to understand the sound phonemes. Children with an inborn hearing disability may fail to develop a fluent communication system and failure in developing decoding abilities to help then become a proficient reader. Research shows that normal and hearing impaired children use different reading strategies. Hearing impaired students showed poor comprehension abilities (Jacobson, McMurchy, & Canada Council for the Arts, 2012, p. 45). Readers with normal hearing decoding, the words in two ways and usually depend on sound based relationship between the letters and sounds related to each letter that is referred as sounding out a word. These are the basis of the ability to read out new words. The lexical approach depends on the word recognition that works with words that do not necessarily follow the phonological rules but requires prior encounter in a written form. There is a clear established system of children with normal hearing master the reading art, and this simplifies the assessment and evaluation of any impairment and the rehabilitation. There is no standard way of treating deaf or hearing impaired. There is a need for more research in this field of discussion. Hearing impaired students cannot rely on hearing sensitivity as an aid in reading, and this is a clear indication of an alternative of reading. Grammatical knowledge and memory of other grammatical knowledge and other language-based skills are reading predictors in the children. The ability to assess and manipulate speech sounds is a strong Prediction tool to the outcome of the reading process. Knowledge is a key aspect in the prediction of reading ability in hearing impaired students. These are the information stored in the memory that shows us to represent spoken language in a written form (Marschark, Lang, & Albertini, 2002, p. 124). These depend on clear understanding of the mental representations orthographic rules of the language. These are the guidelines that dictate how speech must be indicated in writing. A Recent study involving students with prelingual deafness showed that they had problems in phonological decoding, but their ability to recognize and categorize written words was just the same as their peers with normal hearing. These means the students developed strategies to acquire the orthographic knowledge that does not rely on the phonology. Adolescents and kids with deafness were influenced by orthographic when determining the similarity in phonetics. In some instances, phonologic awareness is still a major predictor of reading abilities of both sets of students (Morere & Allen, 2012, p. 43). Some hearing impaired individual’s uses alternative methods to achieve the reading success. The choice may be driven by the educational history and the reading skills. Individuals hearing impairment educated orally showed awareness in phonology at a comparable level with their peers. The awareness skills were associated with the level of reading g comprehensions. Despite the possession these skills; some people raised using sign language did not have the same association with phonological awareness and reading comprehension (Morere & Allen, 2012, p. 76) These clearly indicate that hearing impaired persons who use sign language have a different strategy to achieve reading comprehension. These are clear indications that reading ability to read does not entirely depend upon phonological awareness. Language and learning challenges in children with normal hearing ability are common to the deaf. Depending on the level of hearing loss amplification, some of the features of the speech may be unavailable to the listener with the impairment. In older students with hearing impairments, the degree of loss of hearing had little impact on academic impacts. Studies have shown the inexistence in the relationship between the hearing threshold and the overall performance in reading. A student with hearing disabilities finds it hard to deal with low literacy levels while reading strategies such as prediction of the following text making judgments or digesting the main idea, and re-reading passages are missing. The overall deficit in language comprehension and cognitive factors are sources of poor literacy. Weakness showed by deaf students in the semi-skills involved in reading correlates to similar weaknesses in understanding the sign language. The cognitive theory explains that reading process have several levels of processes that occur simultaneously and requires coordination so as to make a meaningful interpretation of the text. A student may compensate the lack of syntactic prowess of English with the word knowledge and inference processes. Away from the traditional belief in literacy development for hearing impaired children, establishments of the correlation between development and reading factors is important in developing a more holistic approach to the available intervention. Several factors are involved in shaping the reading skills (Ontario Literacy Coalition & Ontario, 1997, p. 56). Acquisition of language one and primary mode of communication have a productive impact on the achievement of reading comprehension deaf or hard of hearing. The masterly and the depth of language understanding and manipulation will help or hinder reading comprehension as this serves child’s critical connection with written language. There seems to be reliable evidence that establishing a sign language as a first language is related to skills in English as a second language. Data shows that literacy outcomes for deaf children somehow depend on the underlying language skills. The relationship still exists in the sign language. Kids, whose parents are deaf, usually outperform kids with hearing parents. Parental hearing status effects on the sign language as well as the English abilities and this means that deaf parents can help development to sign language. The statistics show that more than 96 of children are born to parents who have the hearing ability. These findings may suggest the many deaf children have difficulties in developing English and sign languages. This further enhances the need for early language exposure. The choice of the language to be used as the primary language for the deaf between the signed language and spoken language does not depend on the current context. There are some factors that come into play in this case. The parents masterly and the presence of other people who can clearly communicate clearly influence the patterns and the rate of learning (Weisel & International Congress on Education of the Deaf, 1998, p. 91). Hearing impaired children with functional hearing depends with the learning context and their ability to derive much as they can from that experience. The choice of language between the sign or spoken language has serious effects on using phonological coding in the reading process. The language choice has profound effects on the children in that children who attend more spoken language schools tends to have more hearing ability. Deaf children may become competent readers through various routes. In pre-lingual hearing impaired children, speech reading and the use of speech reading and the use of phonological systems are skills that modified the syllabic representation (Kommatea-Steyer, 2007, p. 39). These determine the proficiency of the readers who are hearing impaired or hard hearing problems. There is evidence that additional skills may be necessary to improve the reading skills. Cochlear implants influence the development of literacy and language acquisition in the deaf or hard hearing children. These are devices that are mandated to amplify sound waves to people with this disability. These implants help the person to access the speech signals and amplify them to levels that the hearing system can process. As study designed to find out the competitiveness between the deaf and normal hearing students with the same literacy levels was carried out. The outcome of revealed the extent to which the phonological skills and demographics play roles in literacy developments among the students having cochlear implants. The research analysts suggested that students with cochlear implants perfumed better than the rest on literacy levels although this did not correspond the phonological processing ability. These correspond to the earlier literature that suggests cochlear implants improve the phonological awareness but not as high as those with normal hearing. Other factors that come into play to the overall success of cochlear implants are the general knowledge, family income and general environment of the children (Samp, 2010, p. 78). Cochlear implants do not raise the level of the deaf of the hearing hard students to the level of normal hearing children. Deaf students seem to read best when exposed to both sign and oral language. When both languages are provided the disabled persons, the students can choose the language that they feel ease when communicating while assuring improved language and mental flexibility. Sign language promotes general knowledge that is the first steps towards improving the reading skills and spoken language (Scheetz, 2012, p. 97). This bimodal bilingualism attains the spoken language as the second or alternative language as the through print. Fluent sign language can serve as primary language when instruction is being relayed in the support of the second language. Good sign skills provide the deaf or hard hearing students with a secure language while spoken language equips them with understanding of the sounds that occur in the words encountered in reading. The bilingual system should be encouraged but should preserve the quality of sign language. Native sign language can act as a bringing to stronger reading skills. Deaf students raised in an environment where they can access the sign language can perfect the reading skills than children raised by hearing parents and do not have sign language as the first language. Conclusion Literacy is a challenge to deaf or hard hearing pupils in the school, and there are limited ways to address these challenges. The only way to ascertain the success of any literacy impaction method to these fellows is a direct comparison with normal hearing peers. Factors that predict reading includes the primary mode of communication phonology and cognitive ability. The phonological ability works together with the cognitive processes to achieve the reading achievement. These skills can be developed as a result of improved reading thus it is not a prerequisite for reading like in children with normal hearing ability (Volkmar, 2013, p. 231). Some deaf students rely on phonology while others use different alternative methods such as the orthographic methods. Orthography helps the deaf or hard hearing students to make decisions about phonologic similarity. The children ability to process this task relies on reading experiences rather than it being the bottom line skill for reading achievement. Interestingly, bot processing is preferential driven by the education and language history. Hearing ability and reading skills have no relationship. The deficit in the language comprehension and he cognitive factors leads to poor literacy levels while high levels are dominant in the early stage literacy development before attaining the school age. The deficit of these factors increases the demand for resources driven towards text driven by processing conceptual processes instead. The students put less effort towards handling difficult aspects of language or integrating the print information with world knowledge. The strength of primary language can distinguish skilled and poor readers. A mismatch between the primary language of the deaf children and parent’s native language creates a difficult scenario for the children to develop a fluent language (Stewart & Clarke, 2003, p. 76). The installation of hearing aids such as the cochlear implants s does not guarantee the achievement of phonologic awareness to the same level as normal hearing children. A deaf student, whose parents are deaf and exposes him to sign language and develops the sign language as the native language; are found to possess stronger reading skills than children who are raised by normal hearing children, especially in areas where the sign language is not the native language. These show the need to match the students’ needs and the family’s abilities. There seems to be a need for openness to the intervention for the children who are deaf or hard hearing. Other strategies can provide a route for successful mastery of the reading art, and there are numerous ways of achieving this goal. The fact that developing literacy for deaf students is different from that of normal hearing students.It helps to change from the traditional interventions that are phonology based upon alternative methods (Schirmer, 1994, p. 149). High-level language and cognitive processes and knowledge processing strategies strengthen reading comprehension skills in students with hard hearing or deaf. Developing a fluent primary mode of communication, which may be a signed or spoken language, could go a long way in supporting the written language. This understanding could help the students to enhance the skills of written language. Accurate statistics of the deaf should be aligned to plan literacy for this group well. The ways in which the deaf uses to read and write should be investigated to take the appropriate measures to advance literacy among the deaf. Alternative ways of enhancing literacy are through interacting with normal hearing people, use of telecommunication devices, media programs and provision of textbooks (Spencer & Marschark, 2010, p. 54). Deaf children are spread throughout the countries ‘communities and geographical locations. The first step towards a fruitful literacy program is to understand and appreciate their disability to hear but also appreciate the special knowledge and skills they possess. References Barnard, R., & Glynn, T. (2003). Bilingual children's language and literacy development. Clevedon, Eng: Multilingual Matters. Brueggemann, B. J. (2004). Literacy and deaf people: Cultural and contextual perspectives. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press. Easterbrooks, S. R., & Beal-Alvarez, J. (2013). Literacy instruction for students who are deaf and hard of hearing. Oxford: Oxford University Press. French, M. M. (1999). Starting with assessment: A developmental approach to deaf children's literacy. Washington, DC: Pre-College National Mission Programs, Gallaudet University. Goldin-Meadow, & Susan. (2005). The Resilience of Language: What Gesture Creation in Deaf Children Can Tell Us About How All Children Learn Language. Essays in Developmental Psychology. CRC Press. Jacobson, R., McMurchy, G., & Canada Council for the Arts. (2012). Focus on disability deaf arts in Canada: A report from the field. Ottawa: Canada Council for the Arts. Kommatea-Steyer, L. (2007). The Experience of Minority Mothers with Early Childhood Deaf Education Programs: A Qualitative Investigation. Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press. Marschark, M., Lang, H. G., & Albertini, J. A. (2002). Educating deaf students: From research to practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Morere, D., & Allen, T. (2012). Assessing literacy in deaf individuals: Neurocognitive measurement and predictors. New York, NY: Springer. Ontario Literacy Coalition, & Ontario. (1997). Anglophone and deaf literacy field development projects, 1996-97. Toronto: Literacy and Basic Skills Section, Ministry of Education and Training. Samp, C. (2010). Cochlear implants in the deaf community: Current circumstances of cochlear implant users among the deaf youth in Sweden's educational system. Scheetz, N. A. (2012). Deaf education in the 21st century: Topics and trends. Boston: Pearson. Schirmer, B. R. (1994). Language and literacy development in children who are deaf. New York: Merrill. Spencer, P. E., & Marschark, M. (2010). Evidence-based practice in educating deaf and hard-of-hearing students. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stewart, D. A., & Clarke, B. R. (2003). Literacy and your deaf child: What every parent should know. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press. Volkmar, F. R. (2013). Encyclopedia of autism spectrum disorders. New York, NY: Springer. Weisel, A., & International Congress on Education of the Deaf. (1998). Issues unresolved: New perspectives on language and deaf education. Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press. Read More