Wisconsin School for the Deaf - The Wisconsin Times Vol. 135 No. 4 Summer 2014 | Page 7

ASL Storybook Apps
This spring, WSD students have been thoroughly enjoying the new ASL Storybook Apps
released by VL2 (Visual Language and Visual Learning). VL2 is one of six Science of Learning
Centers funded by the National Science Foundation and is hosted by Gallaudet University.
The apps open with three simple buttons from which to choose: watch,
read, and learn. The watch button takes you to the ASL signed story
complete with beautifully illustrated moving backgrounds. The read
button opens to the English text of the story along with illustrated pages.
The pages are turned with the swipe of a finger just like a read book. Each
page has highlighted vocabulary that can be clicked and a window will
pop up with the storysigner fingerspelling the words and providing ASL
clarification. The learn button opens a glossary of vocabulary used in the
story. When the vocabulary word is clicked, a pop up window appears and
the ASL storysigner fingerspells and signs the word.
ABOVE:
Emma Vollmar “turns a page” on her iPad.

Lessons using the first two apps, The Baobab and The Boy Who Cried Wolf
have been used in a multitude of ways in the elementary classrooms. Students
worked on their receptive ASL skills by watching the ASL storysigner,
answering follow up questions about signs, sign choices, handshapes,
sequencing, depiction, eye gaze and role shifting. Once students had a clear
understanding of the story, they practiced signing the stories themselves.
Students were taped and given opportunities to view their work and go through
a peer editing process. Students learned to evaluate their own ASL skills and
ABOVE:
those of their classmates. They learned to provide and accept both positive and
Calvin Cuppy shows off his iPad.
constructive feedback.
Next students read the story using iPads. If they did not know a word, they simply clicked on the word and the
window with the ASL storysigner would pop up to clarify. During a grandparent visit, a student asked to show
the story to her grandma. The two sat together uninterrupted while the student read (signed) the whole story to
her grandma. This was an extra specia