Reading Methodology for Deaf Children
Supalla
signing space) with the attachment of the gloss convention >IX=3 to the verb
representing inflection in the sentence. (p. 4)
What has been discussed so far relates to the sentence level. The educators and
researchers at the charter school took into consideration the fact that the gloss text includes the
use of English words. A hearing child would sound out or decode an unfamiliar word in print to
help with his or her reading comprehension. Clearly, deaf children cannot do this task, but those
at the charter school were provided with a way to identify English words in the gloss text. This is
where a supporting component of the glossing approach comes in, called The Resource Book
(RB). The RB works like a bilingual dictionary with thousands of English words paired with the
ASL equivalents written in what is called the ASL-phabet.
With the gloss sentence, DOG NOW CHASE>IX=3 CAT, a young deaf child reading
this sentence might be able to identify all words except for CAT. The child could then use the
RB to locate the word and then read the ASL equivalent next to it. The written sign for CAT is:
B2be. S. Supalla and Cripps explained the details associated with this written sign as
follows:
In the ASL equivalent for CAT, the grapheme in the furthest left slot refers to the
handshape seen in Figure [1] below, the next grapheme refers to the location of
where the sign is produced (i.e., on the cheek), and the last graphemes refer to the
movements made (i.e., b= straight path and e = repeated). (p. 7)
Figure 1: The sign for CAT
Here the deaf child could sound out the sign and learn the meaning of the English word. The
child can then read and comprehend the gloss sentence (i.e., the dog is chasing a cat, not a rabbit,
for example) and move on to reading other sentences. As demonstrated here, the RB makes a
clear connection between English words and their ASL equivalents.
In comparison to what was discussed for Mimography, it becomes clear that the ASL-
phabet is designed for the word level only, not sentences or text (as done with the French system).
Moreover, the ASL-phabet accounts for three phonological parameters of handshape, location,
and movement (which can be seen as an improvement). The number of graphemes for the ASL-
phabet, this time, falls in line with what was discussed above for an ideal alphabet. The ASL-
phabet has 32 graphemes in use (i.e., 20 graphemes for the handshape parameter, 5 for the
location parameter, and 5 for the movement parameter). Aggressive grouping of handshapes
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