Reading Methodology for Deaf Children
Supalla
This admission that deaf education experts made in regard to the lack of pedagogical reading
knowledge for deaf children is noteworthy (see also Hoffmeister & Caldwell-Harris, 2014 for a
similar admission for the lack of a method). However, they overlooked the fact that a charter
school in Arizona had already put together what is known as the glossing approach to reading
instruction. While traditional settings for deaf education include either schools for the deaf or
programs in regular public schools that serve deaf children, it is easy to understand how charter
schools may not be seen as credible or 'part of the system'.
Yet charter schools were expected to explore and test new ideas (Finn, Jr., Manno, &
Vanourek, 2000). Signed language reading was identified as an innovation worthy of exploration
at the Arizona charter school. The Arizona Board of Charter Schools reviewed the application
and approved it leading to the school’s founding in 1996. For financial reasons, the charter
school could not continue after six years of operation. This did not stop a substantial amount of
research and scholarly work from being published.
At the time of the Arizona charter school’s founding, both educators and researchers at
the charter school had full knowledge of ASL writing systems in existence (e.g., SignFont, see
Newkirk, 1987; SignWriting, see Sutton, 1999). However, glossing was adopted at the school,
which ultimately set it on a different course. It is important to understand that glossing is not new
nor is it confined to the education of deaf children. To demonstrate the long history associated
with glossing, Roby (1999) wrote:
…early glosses, interlinear or marginal scribblings, were learner-generated.
Medieval students struggling with a foreign text (usually Latin) produced them as
they worked along. Glosses as teaching aids came later, followed by their
eventual codification into word lists (glossaries) and then dictionaries. (p. 94)
The reading challenge that medieval students faced with Latin is comparable to deaf
children with English literacy. Latin was a ‘dead language’, meaning it was no longer spoken
(which was historically true after the fall of the Roman Empire). The medieval students did not
have an opportunity to hear Latin and use that knowledge for reading development purposes.
These students found themselves scribbling down information on how to best read Latin. It is
such interlinear translation that allowed the medieval students to write about how the structure
and grammar of Latin compared to the language that they knew. It is easy to imagine how other
students could read the gloss passages to help learn to read Latin. More discussion on this for
how glossing applies to deaf children’s learning will follow in the next section.
In addition, the modern use of glossaries and dictionaries which help students who can
hear and know English points to the universal benefits associated with glossing. Native English
speaking students who are already literate often encounter unknown ‘big words’ in print. They
are provided with the opportunity to look up definitions and understand the individual words’
meanings in a dictionary. Second language learners of English have a similar option with
glossing as well. The three well-known types of glossing for this group of students are: 1)
synonyms, 2) encyclopedic comments, and 3) grammatical notes (Roby, 1999). The description
of glossing as “a common and acceptable aid for many foreign language textbooks” (Lomicka,
1998, p. 41) should be noted. From what has been discussed for glossing thus far, it appears that
the primary function of glossing is to make text clear. Deaf children are entitled to glossing as
English text is unclear and unreadable.
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