Evidence from a nine-month longitudinal study of deaf children's early attempts at learning to read provides the construct for an instructional model that stresses that even though the children may have, at the least, a meager expressive sign language vocabulary, they can be lead successfully through the holophrastic or one-word stage of reading development by matching signs and meaning to print. In addition, the evidence identifies three levels of change in this word-reading development. At the first level, the child knows about printed word symbols, can handle a book properly, and begins to attend to stories and label pictures with manual signs. At the next level, the child can: recognize words on food labels, cereal boxes, and road signs in picture contexts; recognize the alphabet using finger spelling; read and print a first name; and attempt to sequence and recall stories. During the third level, the child rapidly increases a sight-word vocabulary, spelling and printing knowledge, and story reciting and sequencing abilities. Two classroom experiments and parent interviews provide additional evidence to support this instructional model. The findings of these efforts suggest that children's communicative interactions about reading related activities using finger spelling and manual signs with parents, teachers, or peers act as precursors to and possibly shape the reading acquisition process that follows. (HOD)