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…

Advocates of bimodal bilingual (Bi-Bi) early intervention argue that both visual and auditory communication systems reflect optimal family and educational interactions for teachers, families, and their young children with hearing loss. The primary objective of this commentary is to highlight semantic variations noted in theoretical, ideological,…

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 results indicated that bimodal presentations are significantly more effective than unimodal approaches and that finger spelling can be an important aid to learning for the Ss used in this study. (Author)

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)

The student's manual to manual communication, finger spelling and sign language, (For instructor's manual, see EC 042 221) is said to be coordinated with material in the instructor's manual and is designed mainly for use as a workbook for out-of-class review and practice on material previously covered in class. The practice material is designed to…

The mainstreaming of hearing-impaired students into physical education classes can occur with relative ease, provided the instructor has at least a minimal understanding of sign language and finger spelling. Finger positions for the alphabet and signs useful in physical activities are given. (MJB)

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

The selected and annotated bibliography contains 22 book entries and nine entries on films and teaching media dealing with sign language. Each entry is described and its usage analyzed. Asterisks precede new titles. (JM)