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Researching Deaf Children’s Literacy
Prof Terezinha NunesDeborah Evans
Danny Bell
Addy Gardner
Dr Diana BurmanUniversity of OxfordWinner of the 2006 Michael Young Research Prize
ESRC Research Methods FestivalSt Catherine’s College, Oxford
Thursday 3rd July 2008
Deafness
One in 1,000 babies born in the UK each year is deaf
Only 2% of deaf school leavers are able to read at their appropriate age level
98% leave school functionally illiterate
WHY?
Literacy Learning
Writing is the written form of the spoken word
Congenitally deaf children have never accurately heard words spoken
Therefore they are unable to think in words in their head
Therefore deaf children find reading and writing very challenging
National Curriculum No writing assessments existWriting Assessment for measuring deaf BSL usersLevel 1. early attempts at English
literacy. Pupils’ writing
communicates meaning through simple words and phrases.
In their reading of their writing, pupils begin to show awareness of how full stops are used.
Letters are usually clearly shaped and correctly orientated.
The Problem
Criteria used to measure writing progress in hearing children are inadequate for many deaf children.
Assessments for writing samples of hearing children start at a level in advance of writing samples of many deaf children
Aims To develop a teaching programme for deaf
primary school children to improve their literacy
To devise literacy assessments
1. To monitor their progress in literacy
2. To provide a framework for teachers
Grammatical and morphological differences between BSL and English
There is not always a one to one correspondence between a word and a sign (e.g. ‘up until now’).
Sentence structures vary (e.g. boy play where?). BSL expresses interrogative and negative through
non-manual features. BSL does not use tenses to denote time. Plurality in BSL is denoted by quantity; the noun
remains the same. BSL does not contain many function or content words
– to/at; is/was; nor the definite or indefinite article – the/a.
Fingerspelling
Fingerspelling is where each alphabetic letter is represented by a hand and finger configuration
It has been developed by hearing educators in an attempt to bridge sign-language with written language
It has to be taught to deaf children as a pre-curser to literacy
is important for literacy learning, but so are
Morphemes these are units of meaning rather than units of
sound Some spellings appear irregular from their letter
sounds, but are regular in their units of meaning
magician = magic + ian
Phonological awareness
Morphemes in English Morphemes have a fixed spelling Morphemes are related to grammar
‘er’ is used to make person words from verbs (read-reader) ‘ian’ is used to make person words from nouns (magic-
magician)
Analyzing words into morphemes helps children break long words into smaller units, accessible to visual coding - unbreakable = unbreakable
Visual coding is used more by deaf than hearing children to remember spellings of words
Question 1
Are deaf children using morphemes?
Spelling assessment: Pretest example
Hypothesis
If taught, deaf children could learn to use morphemes to spell English words,
to decode English words in reading, and
to help them plan writing because of the important connections between morphemes and English grammar.
The Teaching Programme targeted morphemes from 11 English classifications:
1. Plurals ‘s’ ‘windows’ 2 .Regular past tense ‘-ed’ ‘jumped’ 3. 3rd person singular ‘Now Sophie walks’ 4. Person words ‘-er’ ‘teacher’ 5. Person words ‘-ist’ ‘artist’
Targeted morphemes (contd.)
6. Person words ‘-ian’ ‘magician’
7. Suffixes ‘-ful’ ‘painful’
8. ‘-less’ ‘painless’
9. ‘-ment’ ‘government’
10. ‘-ion’ ‘competition’
11. ‘-ness’ ‘tiredness’
1. Singular and Plural
BSL = 1 dog; 4 dog
English = 1 dog; 4 dogs
?6 buns1 bun
?1 flower 3 flowers
mats
tie
spoons
spoon
Tense to denote time -2. Regular past tense3. Third person singular
English =I walk now I walked yesterday
BSL = I walk now I walk yesterday
Last week she danced.
Now she d……….. .dances.
Now granny cooks.
Last night granny c……….. .cooked.
Third Person Singular and Regular Past Tense Bingo Game
Regular past tense: Story Book
Irregular Verbs
Reported speech
Name the person who……
4. ‘-er’5. ‘-ist’6. ‘-ian’
A person who reads is A person who reads is aa
er ist ian
readreaderer
artart istister ist ian
A person who A person who makes art is anmakes art is an
magicmagicianian
er ist ian
A person who makes magic A person who makes magic is ais a
artist O
florist Xmagician O
teacher Xelectrician O
artist O florist X
magician Oteacher X
electrician O
Grace ..……. school.likes
On Tuesday Grace …………. in her science book. She likes science and she’s a good ……………….
writes
scientist/writer.
This is Sir Isaac Newton. He was a scientist and a mathematician.
He liked science…..
…..and he liked mathematics.
Suffixes that change word meanings in predictable ways:
7. ‘-ful’8. ‘-less’
He had a cut. He was in pain. The cut was pain___.painful.
Then the cut got better. He had no pain. The cut was pain____.painless.
She ran fast; She arrived breathless.
The puppy was playful.
© Diana Burman & Addy Gardner
The magician was wonderful.
The cut was painful.
Broken glass can be harmful.
Tom made lots of mistakes; he was careless.
Suffixes 9. ‘-ment’10. ‘-ion’11. ‘-ness’
We must look after our environment
We vote for people to govern
We measure rooms
The grey paving stones
The teacher said, “Punctuate this sentence”
The cat ate to his satisfaction
with the correct punctuation.
to find out the exact measurement.
he went to sleep satisfied.
those people form our government.
made a grey pavement.
by reducing pollution.
Assessments
Spelling Reading Writing
1. These are w……….......
3. Yesterday this man j………… over the babies.
Post-test results of Spelling with Suffixes controlling for age, IQ and pre-test scores (n=132)
Evidence of increased use of morphemes in spelling
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
Comparison Group Intervention Group
Score in spelling suffixes
Pre-test
Post-test
Effect size: 0.49
Post-test Sample (Score 14; Max 14)
Post-test results of Reading Comprehension controlling for age, IQ and pre-test scores
Writing AssessmentInitially 35 children were invited to write about the same 4-picture sequence story at pre-test and post-test.
Scoring
Six experienced teachers of the deaf ranked the deaf children’s writing productions into 5 bands.
These represented knowledge of written English - Band ‘E’ (the weakest) to Band ‘A’ (the strongest).
Band ‘E’ examples(8 boys; 2 girls)
Band E (Children may not understand that writing is a form of
communication based on an oral/aural communication system)
Demonstrate an ability to: Place words the correct way up in order to copy-write Write some alphabetic letters in sequence to resemble
words Memorise some fingerspelling configurations and their
corresponding written letter Produced letter sequences for isolated words, which
may/may not be relevant
Band ‘D’ examples (4 boys; 3 girls)
Band ‘C’ examples(5 boys; 1 girl)
Band D & Band C
Appear to understand that writing is a communication system
Produce some letter sequences to form relevant words, with some obscure spellings
Write words in BSL order, with emerging English syntax
Band C Place words in a more coherent order with
greater awareness of English syntax
Band ‘B’ examples (3 boys; 2 girls)
Band ‘A’ examples(1 boy; 3 girls)
Band B and Band ABand B Transcribe BSL into English Follow through characterisation with an action
(e.g. ‘he pack a clohes for to go to hoilday’ / ‘he finish he carried bag’)
Band A Produce sufficient English syntax for coherent
communication
The correlations between the six teachers scores were high and significant (between r = 0.57 and r = 0.94, p<0.001; n = 32).
These Bands of writing profiles therefore provide a reliable instrument that can be used by teachers of the deaf for both assessment and progression in teaching.
Reliability
A further study involved supported by The Nuffield Foundation involved:
257 deaf children Spread across the UK
Dissemination
Michael Young Prize 2006 BBC Woman’s Hour1. Raised awareness of the link between deaf
ness and literacy
2. Many private individuals and professionals in the UK contacted me seeking further details of the research
Dissemination
Michael Young Prize 2006 National Conferences1. Teachers of the Deaf
2. Parents of deaf children
3. Professionals
Dissemination
Michael Young Prize 2006 National Conferences
Edinburgh Troon
National Conferences (contd.)
Manchester Coventry
National Conferences (contd.)
Nottingham Reading
National Conferences (contd.)
Oxford London
Dissemination
Michael Young Prize 2006
International Conferences
International Conferences
Pittsburgh, USA.American and Canadian Teachers of the Deaf
Annual Conference
International Conferences
Hobart, Tasmania.Annual Conference for Teachers of the Deaf
from Australia and New Zealand
Family–School Partnership
to promote
Deaf Children’s Literacy
Supported by
National Deaf Children’s Society
Teaching materials and assessments are
available at
www.education.ox.ac.uk/research/cl/index.php
