ERIC Number: EJ1174479
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2016
Pages: 27
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0002-726X
EISSN: N/A
The English-Language and Reading Achievement of a Cohort of Deaf Students Speaking and Signing Standard English: A Preliminary Study
Nielsen, Diane Corcoran; Luetke, Barbara; McLean, Meigan; Stryker, Deborah
American Annals of the Deaf, v161 n3 p342-368 2016
Research suggests that English-language proficiency is critical if students who are deaf or hard of hearing (D/HH) are to read as their hearing peers. One explanation for the traditionally reported reading achievement plateau when students are D/HH is the inability to hear insalient English morphology. Signing Exact English can provide visual access to these features. The authors investigated the English morphological and syntactic abilities and reading achievement of elementary and middle school students at a school using simultaneously spoken and signed Standard American English facilitated by intentional listening, speech, and language strategies. A developmental trend (and no plateau) in language and reading achievement was detected; most participants demonstrated average or above-average English. Morphological awareness was prerequisite to high test scores; speech was not significantly correlated with achievement; language proficiency, measured by the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-4 (Semel, Wiig, & Secord, 2003), predicted reading achievement.
Descriptors: Deafness, Hearing Impairments, Reading Skills, Reading Achievement, Manual Communication, Sign Language, Morphology (Languages), Syntax, Elementary School Students, Middle School Students, English, Language Skills, Scores, Language Tests, Reading Tests, Multiple Regression Analysis
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research; Tests/Questionnaires
Education Level: Elementary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Assessments and Surveys: Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals; Gates MacGinitie Reading Tests
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A