Studies have shown the benefits of fingerspelling on literacy skills in school-age deaf and hard-of-hearing students. This study is an observation of 20 first- and second-grade classrooms. The classroom observations were coded for fingerspelling event frequency, type, length, and whether it was chained to print. The observations showed that…

This paper attends to languaging in the context of visually oriented communities of sign language users through the concept of "chaining." I define chaining as the patterned, routine ways of interlinking different linguistic and multimodal elements. The goal of this paper is to discuss the concepts of chaining, languaging and…

We examined the language and reading progress of 336 young DHH children in kindergarten, first and second grades. Trained assessors tested children's language, reading, and spoken and fingerspelled phonological awareness in the fall and spring of the school year. Children were divided into groups based on their auditory access and classroom…

A number of language acquisition patterns have been identified in the signing of a newly designated population of bimodal bilingual individuals--"heritage signers." This article examines subject-referent tracking forms in the ASL (American Sign Language) narratives of six elementary-school-aged, native-signing, bimodal bilinguals made at…

Better understanding of the mechanisms underlying early reading skills can lead to improved interventions. Hence, the purpose of this study was to examine multivariate associations among reading, language, spoken phonological awareness, and fingerspelling abilities for three groups of deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) beginning readers: those who…

The authors conducted an integrative review of the research literature on the writing development, writing instruction, and writing assessment of young deaf children ages 3 to 8 years (or preschool through third grade) published between 1990 and 2012. A total of 17 studies were identified that met inclusion criteria. The analysis examined research…

The finger spelling intelligibility of 10 spellers (five deaf and five normal) to 34 readers (eight deaf and 26 normal) was measured along with differences relative to experience and condition of hearing. (Author)

In 1967 the Florida School for the Deaf adopted the Rochester Method (using fingerspelling as a more visible supplement to speech and lipreading). (LS)

This annotated bibliography contains a list of resources addressing the efficacy of Signing Exact English (SEE II). Forty-three entries summarize results of research that overall indicate the success of students with hearing impairments who learn SEE II. (CR)

Three reasons given by advocates of fingerspelled English or visible English (VE) that their method of communication is superior to total communication (TC) were investigated with an observational study of 11 teachers in two VE schools and 15 teachers in two TC schools. (Author/IM)

Seven preschool children with hearing impairment or deafness were studied for nine months as they learned to read, write, and spell or fingerspell their names. Analysis revealed that the children learned that names are powerful expressions of identity through teacher demonstrations, immersion in a literacy-rich environment, and numerous…

The educational unit on deafness for hearing students was developed by the Alberta (Canada) School for the Deaf and covers: (1) an introduction to deafness (covering types of hearing loss, causes of deafness, misconceptions and clarifications, and the programs of the Alberta School for the Deaf); (2) famous deaf Canadians; (3) a quiz on the deaf…

Compared was the amount of verbal information processed visually by 19 elementary and secondary level deaf students, under print and fingerspelling conditions. (Author)