Reading Methodology for Deaf Children
Supalla
Embracing sound in the visual modality for this paper promises to help educators ‘think
outside the box’ and become receptive to the idea of signed language reading. All languages
have abstract sound elements, some are auditory and some are visual in nature. This
interpretation creates a link for young deaf readers who need signed language-based phonology
as a crucial element for fully experiencing the human reading process. More discussion on this
will follow in connection with glossing later in this paper. Returning to Bébian, he was, by all
accounts, a remarkable educator who saw something of value in signed language reading. He
was bold in creating Mimography, with the assumption that deaf children are much like hearing
children. While reading takes place in an entirely different language modality (i.e., signed), the
underlying principles for reading remain the same.
While the concept of Mimography has merit, the system which was developed fa