10 Things You Should Know about Reading Fluency in Students who are Deaf and Hard of Hearing

Dr. Susan Easterbrooks Professor, GSU Dr. Nanci Scheetz Professor, VSU

I. Students with hearing loss CAN learn to be fluent readers.

Average deaf readers have slower rates than skilled deaf readers. The more automatic the decoding processes are, the better readers students with hearing loss are and the more fluently they read. Temporary storage capacity, or working memory, and the ability to process the separate bits of information found in reading passages are important precursors to the literacy success of DHH students. Repeated reading is an effective tool for promoting fluency in deaf readers.
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Content Competence

II. However, their weaknesses with vocabulary and grammar will require teachers to modify what and how they are teaching fluency.
For deaf children (and all children), fluency is a LANGUAGE issue. Fluent readers must map spoken language onto print rapidly and easily. (National Reading Panel, 1999) The same holds true when the language is sign language, but in addition, the reader must code-switch between the two languages. This is why it is essential to collaborate with the teacher of the deaf.

Relationship between language an fluency patterns.

Chunking or focusing on language patterns is important because the English language is based on phrase and clause units (i.e., patterns, groupings, or chunks of information).

English is modular. Sentences are made up of the following modules:

noun phrases verb phrases adjectival phrases adverbial phrases prepositional phrases adverbial clauses relative clauses

Example Who went to the store? She is the lady who went to the store. While these chunks are the same, they sound very different when spoken, look very different when signed, and mean something altogether different in the context of their sentences. The ability to produce these different patterns facilitates fluency. They are language patterns, and fluency is a language issue for children who are deaf and hard of hearing.

III. Some students learn fluency skills through the auditory pathway.
Children who can become fluent through the auditory pathway need:
Careful monitoring of their hearing aids Careful examination of the sounds they hear easily versus the sounds they dont hear so well Early and extra attention on fluency patterns (often beginning at the pattern differentiation level such as ouch versus hop-hophop) Careful collaboration between the general education teacher and the teacher of the deaf.

IV. Some students learn fluency skills through the visual pathway.
Signed reading fluency correlates highly with passage comprehension. Children who sign may actually be rendering the printed English into fluent signed expression. The more clearly a signer codeswitches between the languages, the more likely he is to be a fluent reader. Consult very closely with the teacher of the deaf and with the interpreter to make sure the student is connecting English print to his own language.

V. In all approaches you must consider all 3 components of fluency.

Fluency is the ability to read orally with speed, accuracy, and proper expression.

(National Reading Panel, NICHHD, 2000) ORas is the important difference for students with hearing loss

to read ones language with speed, accuracy, and proper expression

The least well understood component of fluency (both for hearing and for deaf) is expression.

Expression reflects the mood and emotion of the written word and includes
Tone of voice Tone of face (in ASL users)

Patterns of duration, intensity, and pitch

Chunking or expression of the different modules of language

VI. Visual approaches depend on the students primary language.

If the students primary language is American Sign Language, then the student needs instruction in both language as well as instruction in codeswitching between the languages. If the students primary language is a signed form of English, then the student needs to learn the grammar as well as the vocabulary of the language while simultaneously learning visual decoding strategies (See phonological awareness and phonics presentation.). If the students primary language is a spoken language other than English, then the student might benefit from one of the visual approaches used in phonological awareness and phonics instruction (See phonological awareness and phonics presentation.).

VII. A really great assessment helps you decide what skills the student needs to learn.
To identify reading level (independent, instructional, frustration) and document progress in the areas of:
Word recognition in lists Word recognition in context Comprehension

To assess text difficulty

Too easy
Too difficult Just right!

To observe reading behaviors and strategies

VIII. ASL visual approaches involve the visual envelope and visual grammar.
Definition of accuracy for signing deaf children the ability of the signer to translate the concepts in English print text into a signed format that has equivalent conceptual meaning. This component can be measured with miscue analysis, either while completing a running record or an informal reading inventory. Therefore, we felt no need to duplicate this component. Definition of fluency envelope
the overall visual appearance of an individual who is signing while reading, with or without voice, which gives the visual impression that he or she is a good reader or not a good reader.

Definition of visual grammar

those key elements of signing, whether in an English-like mode or ASL, which demonstrate to the observer that the reader is visualizing the meaning of the story.

See Easterbrooks & Huston (2007) for a detailed description of signed reading fluency.

IX. Some really great materials that others have found helpful are
Visualizing and Verbalizing

Readers Theater
http://www.aaronshep.com/rt/books/ReadersOS.html

http://loiswalker.com/catalog/teach.html

http://www.teachingheart.net/readerstheater.htm

X. Some useful strategies that work with DHH students are:

Repeated reading Teacher modeling Dyad reading Echoic reading Listening to and mimicking pitch differences (pattern practice) Listening to and mimicking loudness patterns Listening to and mimicking differences in durational patterns Study of verb idioms and figurative language

 ASL grammar instruction. English/ASL comparative structure study. ASL grammar videos. Conversation time with deaf adults, hearing adults, and other students.

Study English grammar patterns in formal and in context situations.

READ, READ, READ.

Morphographemic study
Read for an audience

Sources and Resources

Easterbrooks, S., & Huston, S. (2007). Signed reading fluency in students who are deaf and hard of hearing. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education.
Kelly, L. (1995). Processing of bottom-up and top-down information by skilled and average deaf readers and implication for whole language instruction. Exceptional Children, 61(4), 318-334. ). Kelly, L. P. (2003). The importance of processing automaticity and temporary storage capacity to the differences in comprehension between skilled and less skilled college age deaf readers. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 8(3), 230-249.

Ensor, A. D., & Koller, J. R. (1997). The effect of the method of repeated readings on the reading rate and word recognition accuracy of deaf adolescents. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 2(2), 61-70.

 Other sources: Garrison, Long & Dowaliby, 1997; Kelly, 1993; King & Just, 1991

http://www.deafed.net/Forums/ForumsLi st.asp Content Competence

1. Students with hearing loss CAN learn to be fluent readers 2. However, their weaknesses with vocabulary and grammar will require teachers to modify what and how they are teaching fluency. 3. Some students learn fluency skills through the auditory pathway. 4. Some students learn fluency skills through the visual pathway. 5. In all approaches you must consider all 3 components of fluency. 6. Visual approaches depend on the students primary language (L1). 7. A really great assessment helps you decide what skills the student needs to learn 8. ASL visual approaches involve the visual envelope and visual grammar. 9. Some really great materials that others have found helpful are: 10. Some useful strategies that work with DHH students are: