Writing in Young Deaf Children

564882

research-article2014

RERXXX10.3102/0034654314564882Williams & MayerWriting in Young Deaf Children

Review of Educational Research December 2015, Vol. 85, No. 4, pp. 630–666 DOI: 10.3102/0034654314564882 © 2015 AERA. http://rer.aera.net

Writing in Young Deaf Children Cheri Williams University of Cincinnati Connie Mayer York University The authors conducted an integrative review of the research literature on the writing development, writing instruction, and writing assessment of young deaf children ages 3 to 8 years (or preschool through third grade) published between 1990 and 2012. A total of 17 studies were identified that met inclusion criteria. The analysis examined research problems, theoretical frames, research methodologies, and major findings across the body of work. Findings of the review indicated that much of the research has focused on spelling, and when studies examined writing development, the analyses were limited to the word level. Assessment of writing has been largely ignored. Results also indicated that two primary conceptual frameworks have dominated the field across the 22-year span, with divergent implications for pedagogy and practice. The researchers call for longitudinal studies that examine deaf children’s use of English grammar and syntax within connected discourse.

Keywords:

deaf, hard-of-hearing, writing development, writing instruction, spelling

In contrast to all other learners it could be argued that deaf students encounter singular challenges in language and literacy development as a consequence of their hearing loss. For example, although 62% of eighth graders with disabilities scored below the basic level in reading achievement (U.S. Department of Education, 2009), over 80% of deaf students scored in the below basic range when taking the Stanford Achievement Test (Traxler, 2000). It has been well documented that for the better part of the past century, the median reading level for an 18-year-old deaf student is about the fourth grade level (Allen, 1986; King & Quigley, 1985; Pintner & Patterson, 1916; Qi & Mitchell, 2012; Quigley & Kretschmer, 1982; Traxler, 2000; Trezek, Wang, & Paul, 2010), and approximately 30% of deaf graduates leave school functionally illiterate (Marschark, Lang, & Albertini, 2002; Moores, 2001, 2006). A similar pattern of performance has been reported in the area of writing, with suggestions that the typical 17- to 18-year-old deaf student writes at a level comparable to that of an 8- to 630 Downloaded from http://rer.aera.net at UNIV OF CINCINNATI on November 14, 2015

Writing in Young Deaf Children

10-year-old hearing learner (Paul, 1998; see Mayer, 2010, for a discussion). In fact, taken as a group, deaf children perform significantly below their hearing same-age peers across a number of measures of written English skill (see Albertini & Schley, 2011, for a review). In particular, deaf students have limited vocabularies and their knowledge of English syntax and semantics is restricted. Although deaf students face challenges in both learning to read and to write, research on reading has been afforded more attention than research on writing (Mayer, 2010). Perhaps this should not be surprising given that a focus on reading over writing is typical of literacy research in general (Boscolo, 2008). In addition, although there have been comprehensive reviews of the literature examining evidence-based research in reading for deaf learners (Easterbrooks, 2010; Luckner, Sebald, Cooney, Young, & Goodwin-Muir, 2005/2006; Schirmer & McGough, 2005), there have not been similar reviews for writing. The lack of research on writing represents a gap in the field, and to this end we have undertaken a comprehensive examination of the research literature on the writing development of young deaf children (ages 3 to 8 years) and the instructional approaches that have been used to foster their writing development. We have chosen to focus on the early years for three reasons. First, it is widely accepted that a solid foundation in the early literacy years predicts success in later reading and writing development (Adams, 1990, 1994, 2002; National Early Literacy Panel, 2008; Storch & Whitehurst, 2002; Whitehurst & Lonigan, 2002). Second, within an emergent literacy framework, it has been demonstrated that reading and writing develop in tandem in literacy-rich environments (Clay, 1966) and “mutually reinforce one another in development” (Teale & Sulzby, 1989, p. 4). Our research-based understandings of early reading processes may shed light on early writing development (Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton, & Johnston, 2008; Chall, 1996; Clay, 1983; Shanahan, 2006; for deaf children, see discussions in Mayer, 2010; Mayer & Trezek, in press; Paul, 2009; Williams, 2004, 2011). Third, in most industrialized nations (e.g., Australia, United States, Canada, the European Union), universal screening of newborn children for permanent hearing loss has become standard practice, allowing for earlier identification of children with hearing loss and possibilities for earlier intervention (Cone, 2011; Leigh, 2008; Leigh, Newall, & Newall, 2010; Mayer & Leigh, 2010; Nelson, Bougatsos, & Nygren, 2008). Moreover, advances in amplification technologies, especially cochlear implants, allow many of these children considerably improved access to spoken language (Archbold, 2010; Spencer & Marschark, 2003). As a consequence of this earlier intervention and better access to spoken language, there are increased expectations that many of these children will develop ageappropriate literacy outcomes (Marschark, Rhoten, & Fabich, 2007; Spencer & Oleson, 2008). Furthermore, the majority of these children are now being educated in general education settings with their hearing peers (see Antia, Kreimeyer, & Reed, 2010, for a discussion). In this context, we are witnessing a renewed and growing interest in the reading and writing development of young deaf children. Purpose of the Review Therefore, from both a theoretical and evidence-based perspective, we suggest that a review of the research on early writing is warranted. We aim to identify the 631 Downloaded from http://rer.aera.net at UNIV OF CINCINNATI on November 14, 2015

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evidence base and develop a better understanding of what we know, and do not know, about the early writing development of young deaf children. Our goals in this review are threefold: (a) to determine the extent to which early writing in deaf children has been investigated, (b) to synthesize the findings of these studies, and (c) to identify the nature of the theoretical frameworks and research methodologies driving the research. Definition of Key Terms For this review, we have adopted a flexible approach to terminology with respect to people-first language. The Americans with Disabilities Act (1990) recommends terms such as people who are deaf rather than deaf people. It is acceptable, however, and often preferred by many deaf individuals and professionals to avoid the restrictions of people-first language in discussions of deaf persons— thus, our flexible approach to terminology. Moreover, in only one of the studies we reviewed did the researcher distinguish between deaf children and hard of hearing children. Thus, we use the term, deaf children, to refer to a range of children who have hearing loss—from those who have mild losses to those who are profoundly deaf (see Schirmer & Gough, 2005). We use the capitalized term, Deaf, when individuals with hearing loss have self-identified as belonging to the Deaf culture and community. A cochlear implant is a device that provides direct electrical stimulation to the auditory nerve in the inner ear. Children and adults with a severe to profound hearing loss who cannot benefit from hearing aids may be helped with cochlear implants. This type of hearing loss is sensorineural, which means there is damage to the tiny hair cells in the part of the inner ear called the cochlea. Because of this damage, sound cannot reach the auditory nerve. With a cochlear implant, the damaged hair cells are bypassed, and the auditory nerve is stimulated directly. The cochlear implant does not result in restored or cured hearing. It does, however, allow for the perception of the sensation of sound (American Speech-LanguageHearing Association, 2014). Amplification refers to hearing technologies such as FM systems that provide access to auditory input for deaf individuals, often used in educational settings. Cued Speech is a sound-based, visual system that uses eight hand configurations in four locations around the mouth to signal phonological information. Consonants are represented by hand shapes and vowels are represented by hand positions and movement. For instructional purposes, Cued Speech is used at the phoneme level (LaSasso, Crain, & Leybaert, 2003). Visual Phonics is a multisensory technique that uses hand cues and written graphemes to teach each of the 46 phonemes of English. The hand cues represent phonemes and reflect the articulatory features of sound. The written symbols mirror the gestures used in the cues and provide visual discrimination between the letter and the sound it makes (International Communication Learning Institute, 1996). American Sign Language (ASL) is a visual–gestural language, with its own unique rules of grammar and syntax that uses handshape, placement, and movement, as well as facial expressions and body movements, to convey information. It is the language of the culturally Deaf community in the United States and in

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most parts of Canada. Fingerspelling is a manual system (i.e., handshapes) for representing the letters of the alphabet (Padden, 2006). English-based sign refers to the range of ways in which English can be represented manually through signs, including invented sign systems such as Signed English or Signing Exact English. Simultaneous use of spoken and signed language is often characteristic of Englishbased sign. Lucas and Valli (1992) proposed the term, contact sign, to describe the language that is the result of the frequent contact between ASL and English in the deaf community. Despite wide variations in the ways in which contact sign is realized in practice (e.g., the linguistic background of the interlocutors), there are numerous common features of contact signing at the lexical, morphological, and syntactic levels. Spoken language is produced via the vocal tract, standing in contrast to signed languages that are visual-gestural (i.e., primary articulators are the hands). Oral communication indicates the use of spoken language. Total Communication is a philosophy of educating children with hearing loss that incorporates all means of communication, including formal signs, natural gestures, fingerspelling, body language, listening, speechreading, and spoken language. Children in Total Communication programs typically wear hearing aids or cochlear implants. The goal is to optimize language development in whatever way is most effective for the individual child. Total Communication is truly a philosophy rather than a methodology. As a result, the implementation of the Total Communication philosophy with one child may look entirely different than its implementation with another child (Hand & Voices, 2014). Schools for the deaf provide a specialized setting for educating deaf/Deaf students. A self-contained classroom is a classroom for the education of deaf children housed within a general education public school setting. Residential schools for the deaf/Deaf offer a setting where students live on campus, going home on weekends and/or holidays. Although some of these schools use an oral communication approach, residential schools for the deaf typically adopt a pedagogical approach that is aligned with the views of the culturally Deaf community and use a signed language as the language of communication and instruction. Historically, residential schools have served as hubs for the Deaf community and culture. Method Our mode of inquiry was an integrative review of the research literature. We examined the body of research that investigated writing development, instruction, and assessment among young deaf children ages 3 to 8 years. Our data corpus consisted of empirical studies reported in peer-reviewed journal articles between 1990 and 2012. Given the paucity of research in this field, we would have included dissertation studies, but none were found. We did not include meta-analyses, book chapters, or previous reviews of the research literature, and we limited our search to articles published in English. For our initial search, we used numerous electronic search engines, including Google Scholar, ProQuest Research Library, Academic Research Library, Jstor, PsychINFO, and ERIC. Our content search terms included writing, early writing, emergent literacy, spelling, literacy assessment, writing assessment, writing instruction, home literacy, American Sign Language, ASL, and literacy. Our population search terms included deaf, hard of hearing, hearing impaired, young 633 Downloaded from http://rer.aera.net at UNIV OF CINCINNATI on November 14, 2015

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children, preschool, kindergarten, elementary school, and parent. Last, we examined the reference list of each study we located. We established the following inclusion criteria: (a) that studies specify a population sample that included children ages 3 to 8 years (or preschool through grade three) who experienced some degree of hearing loss, and (b) that the studies were data-driven (i.e., data sources were specified). Applying these criteria, we limited our review to empirical research; no conceptual or opinion pieces were included. Additionally, research on reading alone was excluded; a focus on some dimension of writing was required. For example, in studies of emergent literacy, researchers had to address young children’s emergent writing for the study to be included. We applied these criteria to the abstract of each article we identified and consulted the full article as needed to determine inclusion or exclusion in our review. The 17 studies described in Table 1 met our inclusion criteria. Research Questions and Analysis Procedures Our systematic analysis of the 17 articles included in this review was guided by three initial research questions: (a) Which aspects of young deaf children’s writing have been examined? (b) Which approaches to writing instruction have been used to support young deaf children’s writing development? (c) Which assessments have been employed to measure growth in deaf children’s writing? In addition, we were interested in examining the theoretical frameworks and research methodologies that were used in each of the studies, as these elements of research design can shape the outcomes of scholarship. Durst (1990) stated that examining the methodologies used to investigate research problems can “serve as a kind of indicator of the state of the field” (p. 394), and Juzwik et al. (2006) suggested that as one considers the scope of the work being done, these dimensions of research are “particularly worthy of a closer look” (p. 453). Moreover, although the use of theory in the conduct of research has important implications for epistemology as well as methodology, it has not been systematically examined as an investigative practice (Dressman & McCarthey, 2011). Often, researchers provide theoretical explanations of the phenomena under investigation through a systematic grounding in the available empirical research evidence. In more contemporary uses of theory, however, researchers apply to the conduct of research specific theories that are external to the phenomena under investigation, such as Lave and Wenger’s (1991) legitimate peripheral participation, Bakhtin’s (1981) dialogicality, or Vygotsky’s (1978) zone of proximal development. We were interested to know how researchers who were investigating deaf children’s writing development employed theory in their work. Consequently, two additional questions also guided our analysis of each article: (d) What was the nature of the theory (or theories) framing the research? (e) Which research methodologies were used to conduct the investigation? In the sections below, we provide a summary of the findings of our integrative review, which fell broadly into three major categories: writing development, spelling, and writing instruction. We then examine the theoretical frameworks and the research methodologies employed in the studies we reviewed. At the end of each section, we synthesize the evidence reported. In the final sections of the


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1 child, from 3 to 7 years of age 17 preschoolers, ages 4–6 years 5 preschoolers, ages 5–6 years 72 first to sixth graders, ages 6–12 years

Ruiz (1995)

Leybaert and Lechat (2001)

Mayer and Moskos (1998)

Aram, Most, and Simon (2008) Padden (1993)

Singleton, Morgan, DiGello, Wiles, and Rivers (2004) Kim (2012)

Williams (1999)

67 deaf and 32 hearing, ages 6–14 years

Qualitative case study

Longitudinal qualitative case study Descriptive

Multiple qualitative case studies

Research methods

Phoneme-grapheme knowledge

Quantitative analysis of spelling test

Longitudinal qualitative

Quantitative analysis of elicited written retellings Intertextuality in written Microethnography narratives Mothers’ mediation of Correlational writing tasks Spelling strategies Clinical interview

Emergent/early writing development Emergent/early writing development Role of signed language in early writing Vocabulary use in written retellings

Emergent/early writing development

Research problem

9 kindergartners, ages 5–6 years 30 kindergartners, ages 5–7 years 40 elementary, ages 4–9 years 15 first to second graders, Spelling strategies ages 5–9 years

6 kindergartners, ages 6–8 years

Andrews and Gonzales (1992)

Bustos (2008)

Population

Study

Table 1 Features of the studies reviewed

(continued)

Sociocultural (Kress, 1997); cognitive-developmental (Karmiloff-Smith, 1992; Olson, 1994) —

—

Sociocultural (Street, 1995; Ramsey & Padden, 1998) —

Sign-meaning-print connection (Andrews & Mason, 1986a, 1986b) Cognitive (Ferreiro & Teberosky, 1982) Emergent literacy (Teale & Sulzby, 1989) Social interactionist (Dyson, 1991) —

Theoretical framework

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Williams (2011)

Sirois, Boisclair, and Giasson (2008)

Wolbers (2008)

Kyle and Harris (2011)

24 deaf and 23 hearing (mean age 5.8 and 5.0 years, respectively) 16 elementary and middle school 31 deaf and 25 hearing first graders (mean age 6.7 and 6.6 years, respectively) 6 kindergartners, mean age 5.2 years Adapted interactive writing

Longitudinal predictors of reading and spelling ability Adapted morning message Invented spelling-cued speech

29 deaf (ages 7–8 years), Correlates and 31 hearing (ages 5–8 predictors of reading years) and spelling ability 64 elementary, ages 7–11 Fingerspelling and years visual imaging techniques

Kyle and Harris (2006)

van Staden and le Roux (2010)

7 deaf, 9 hard of hearing, Spelling development 34 hearing, ages 5–7 years

Allman (2002)

Research problem

Population

Study

Table 1 (continued)

—

—

Theoretical framework

—

Qualitative case study

Situated cognition (Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989), qualitative similarity hypothesis (Paul & Lee, 2010)

Correlational/comparative Dual-route processing (Coltheart, 1978; Ehri, 1999)

Pretest–posttest

Bilingual-bicultural (Strong & Prinz, 2000; Cummins, 1991), social-constructivism (Vygotsky, 1978) Longitudinal/correlational —

Quasi-experimental pretest–posttest comparison group

Quantitative and qualitative analysis of developmental spelling assessment Correlational

Research methods


article, we discuss the significance of those findings and offer implications for pedagogical practice and future research. Results With respect to our first research question, two primary aspects of young deaf children’s writing have been examined: writing development and spelling. We discuss these aspects separately in the following sections. Writing Development In the 22-year timeframe of our review, seven investigations examined various aspects of writing in young deaf children, including emergent and early writing development, the role of signed language, vocabulary use, and use of intertextuality as a composing strategy. The impact of mothers’ mediation of writing activities on deaf children’s early literacy skills also was examined. Researchers conducted these investigations in preschool, kindergarten, and elementary school classrooms as well as in children’s homes. Emergent and Early Writing Development Emergent and early writing development represents a continuum, and so we have not separated them in our analysis. Andrews and Gonzales (1992) were among the first to investigate young deaf children’s writing development (see Table 1). The six kindergarten children (ages 6 to 8 years) had hearing losses ranging from mild to profound and used signed language for communication. The theoretical framework for this investigation was the sign-meaning-print connection (Andrews & Mason, 1986a, 1986b), which involves translating meaning from written language to sign language in whole sequences of meanings—in concepts—rather than matching each printed word with a manual sign. Instructional approaches grounded in this theory encourage teachers to help deaf children understand that the meaning of a text does not follow a sign-for-word translation. Andrews and Gonzales used multiple qualitative case studies to examine the children’s developing knowledge about written language across the academic year. Results of the study indicated that all six children showed growth in their conceptual understandings of writing and in acquisition of letters, words, and print concepts. Four children learned to space between words in their writing. Some children linked fingerspelling to letters and manual signs to words. The researchers indicated that, in general, the children’s alphabetic development moved from scribbling to printing a single random letter, to printing a series of random letters, to printing whole words. They attributed the children’s growth to the instructional program that engaged children in communicative interactions about written language during authentic literacy activities. Ruiz (1995) assumed a cognitive perspective (Ferreiro & Teberosky, 1982) as she investigated her profoundly deaf daughter’s emergent and early writing development. In a longitudinal qualitative case study, the researcher analyzed her daughter’s drawing and writing products created in the home from the ages of 3 to 7 years to examine the child’s “working hypotheses” (p. 206) about print. Ruiz found that many of her daughter’s hypotheses about English orthography were similar to those of young hearing children as documented in the research literature 637 Downloaded from http://rer.aera.net at UNIV OF CINCINNATI on November 14, 2015

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(cf., Harste, Woodward, & Burke, 1984; Schickedanz, 1990). For example, her first known word was her name, and she used the letters in her name to generate spellings for other words. The child also held hypotheses related to her use of signed language. She hypothesized, for example, that “the shape of your hand when you sign a word tells you its first letter” (p. 213). Although the child demonstrated some metalinguistic awareness of sound-based strategies, Ruiz reported that her daughter used visual strategies for writing and argued that she learned to read and write without a “well-developed, internal phonemic system” (p. 216). Ruiz questioned whether other children also could forego the phonemic path in learning to read and write. Ruiz did not report outcome measures of reading or writing achievement; however, on a third-grade spelling achievement test, the child scored in the 90th percentile. The implications of spelling achievement for literacy development in young deaf children are unclear; as we discuss later in this article, reading and spelling development in young deaf children appear to be disparate skills. In a more recent, exploratory, descriptive study, Bustos (2008) examined the emergent writing of 17 preschool Filipino deaf children (ages 4 to 6 years) who had severe to profound hearing losses. The study was grounded in the emergent literacy perspective (Teale & Sulzby, 1989). Eight of the children attended oral communication schools; however, Bustos (2008) indicated that “none of them responded through the oral-aural channel” (p. 104). Nine of the children attended schools that used signed language. The researcher used videotaping to document the children’s writing behaviors at the writing center of their preschool classrooms. Findings indicated that the children demonstrated left-to-right directionality and were able to write their names. They used drawings and scribbles as well as conventional letters to represent meaning. The signing children wrote single letters to represent words and wrote animal names correctly. Bustos indicated that the deaf children’s early writing behaviors paralleled those documented among young hearing Filipino children (Medrano, 1997; Pado, 1990). She argued for the use of visually oriented strategies for literacy instruction, due to deaf children’s “visual inclination” (Bustos, 2008). Signed Language Williams (1999) examined the role of signed language in young deaf children’s writing. She used a qualitative case study to investigate 4- and 5-year-old profoundly deaf children’s use of ASL and contact sign during open-ended composing periods in their preschool classroom. The researcher grounded the project in social interactionist perspectives (Dyson, 1991), which argue that the social interaction and sociodramatic play that surround children’s drawing and writing are an intrinsic part of the literacy event. Results of the study indicated that the children used a range of language functions (e.g., representational, directive) to support their drawing and writing. As the children used signed language to discuss their work, they made connections between fingerspelling and printed letters as well as between words and manual signs. Williams argued that the children’s metalinguistic conversations supported their early understandings about print (Clay, 1975). The study corroborated previous findings from research with hearing children that social interaction is important to emergent writing (Labbo, 1996; Troyer, 1991). 638 Downloaded from http://rer.aera.net at UNIV OF CINCINNATI on November 14, 2015

Vocabulary Singleton, Morgan, DiGello, Wiles, and Rivers (2004) examined vocabulary use in the writing of 72 severely to profoundly deaf students (ages 6–12 years) in first through sixth grade. This study was included in our review because study participants included young children. Although the study was grounded in previous research on the relationship between vocabulary and literacy development, no theoretical framework was described. The deaf students attended either a residential school or a self-contained classroom in a public school using Total Communication. The researchers categorized the deaf children according to their proficiency level in ASL as low-proficient, moderate-proficient, or high-proficient based on performance on the American Sign Language Proficiency Assessment (Maller, Singleton, Supalla, & Wix, 1999). Sixty-six monolingual hearing and 60 English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) hearing students served as comparison groups. Students viewed a videotaped cartoon and were asked to retell the story in writing. The writing samples were scored for total number of words, use of words frequently used in children’s writing, redundancy of word use, and use of English function words. However, only function-word attempts were counted; the researchers did not evaluate the accuracy of usage, nor was grammatical accuracy examined. Results of the study indicated that the monolingual hearing students and the ESL hearing students performed similarly on total word measures and function word use. However, the ESL students used more high frequency words and fewer novel (i.e., not used frequently) words than did the monolingual students. Both groups wrote more total words in their stories than did the deaf students. The lowASL group wrote significantly fewer words than their hearing peers but did not differ significantly from the moderate-ASL and high-ASL groups on the total word measure. Their writing was highly formulaic and redundant. These students used a very limited number of function words and the same high frequency words repeatedly in their writing. The moderate-ASL and high-ASL groups were not significantly different from each other on any measure, nor were they significantly different from their hearing monolingual peers on frequent-word or novel word use. However, they exceeded both the ESL and low-ASL groups on novel word use, and they used considerably fewer frequently used words than did the ESL and low-ASL groups. All the deaf writers showed significantly lower use of function words, and a limited variation of function words, as compared with their hearing peers. The moderate-ASL and high-ASL groups had the lowest proportion of function words in their writing, significantly below the low-ASL, ESL, and monolingual groups. Based on these findings, the researchers suggested that the high-ASL proficient signers had creative expressive vocabularies in English and drew on their semantic understandings in ASL to generate novel content-word vocabulary in their writing. They suggested further that proficiency in ASL might provide an advantage to learning English vocabulary. Given the differences in results between the ASL groups and the ESL students in the study, the researchers recommended that educators exercise caution when considering ESL pedagogies for use with deaf children (Singleton et al., 2004).


Intertextuality Kim (2012) examined the written narratives of nine kindergarten children (ages 5 and 6 years) with severe to profound hearing losses. Four of the children attended a state school for the deaf that embraced a bilingual–bicultural approach, an orientation which suggests that well-developed skills in ASL and sign-related visual coding strategies may provide deaf children a phonological/orthographic link to written English, without exposure to English through spoken language or English-based signs (see Strong & Prinz, 2000; see also Cummins, 1991). The children used ASL for face-to-face communication and English for reading and writing instruction. Their teacher was Deaf. The other five children were enrolled in an oral communication program. Kim (2012) framed her study within sociocultural perspectives in which literacy is viewed as a social and cultural practice (Heath, 1983; Ramsey & Padden, 1998; Street, 1995). She videotaped writing events and collected written narratives from children in both classrooms. She analyzed the written narratives with a focus on intertextuality (Bloome & Egan-Robertson, 1993), which examines the various symbolic resources that writers use to create text. Kim found that the deaf children in both classrooms used two primary intertextual sources as cognitive strategies to construct their written narratives: connections to other signs (e.g., a peer’s text, word walls, storybooks, media) and connections to social experiences (e.g., family, friendship, daily events). She indicated that although the children’s written narratives were intertextually cohesive, none of the narratives reflected traditional sentence or story structure grammars. Mothers’ Mediation of Writing Tasks Aram, Most, and Simon (2008) used a correlational design to examine the impact of mothers’ guidance during writing activities on their deaf children’s early literacy skills. The researchers grounded the study in previous research on early literacy but did not explicate a theoretical framework. Thirty Israeli kindergarteners (ages 5 to 7 years) with mild to profound hearing losses and their hearing mothers participated in the study. Approximately 63% of the children wore hearing aids and 36% had cochlear implants. The children’s early literacy skills were assessed in their kindergarten classrooms. The writing tasks were videotaped in the children’s homes. The mothers and children were presented with four cards displaying drawings of nouns. Children were given four blank cards and asked to write the name for each noun pictured; the mothers were asked to help the children write the words. Researchers transcribed and analyzed the videotapes to identify the mothers’ cognitive (grapho-phonemic, printing, demand for precision, task perception, reference to orthography) and emotional (atmosphere, cooperation, conduct-related, physical contact) mediation of the writing tasks. Results of the study indicated that the cognitive aspects of the mothers’ guidance correlated positively and significantly with word writing, word recognition, and, in particular, letter knowledge. Emotional aspects correlated significantly, although to a lesser degree, with word recognition, general knowledge, and, specifically, letter knowledge. None of the mothers’ mediation measures correlated with phonological awareness. Mothers typically dictated letter names and



helped with letter shape but did not address sound; their mediation was significantly related to letter knowledge (Aram et al., 2008). Synthesis Although the children in these seven studies were educated in a variety of settings (e.g., schools for the deaf, self-contained classrooms, general education settings) and used a range of hearing technologies (including cochlear implants) and communication strategies (e.g., ASL, English-based sign, spoken language), reports indicate that despite these differences, all the children developed basic understandings about written text. Andrews and Gonzales (1992), Ruiz (1995), Williams (1999), and Bustos (2008) all documented children’s acquisition of basic conceptualizations about written language (i.e., that print is a representation system that conveys meaning; that there is a relationship between face-to-face language and the text in the encoding process) as well as growth in children’s orthographic knowledge as a result of participating in literacy activities that focused on meaning making. Instruction on letter–sound correspondence was rare in these four studies, perhaps due to the teachers’ or parents’ beliefs (an ideology) that deaf children cannot access phonology, as well as a lack of understanding, at that time, of the importance of phonology in deaf children’s learning to read and write. Similarly, in the Aram et al. study (2008), mothers focused primarily on letter knowledge, as opposed to phonological knowledge, as they helped their children to write isolated words, perhaps motivated by the same ideology as in the four studies above. Both Williams (1999) and Kim (2012) found that, like hearing children, young deaf children used social interaction and cultural media as resources for constructing their written narratives. However, Kim, and also Singleton et al. (2004), reported that deaf students’ narrative writing was nonstandard in terms of English structure and grammar, although neither study systematically examined these components of language in the deaf students’ writing. In fact, Singleton et al. focused on vocabulary and function word use without attention to grammatical or syntactic accuracy. It is interesting to note that Singleton et al. (2004) encouraged caution when considering the use of ESL pedagogies with ASL-proficient deaf learners. Adaptations of ESL pedagogies have been used with deaf students since the early 1970s (e.g., Goldberg & Boardman, 1974), because both groups of learners have limited English vocabularies and show similar performance in the omission of function words and in acquiring English syntactic structures. However, Singleton et al. found that the deaf learners in their study used vocabulary and function words in their writing in ways that were dissimilar to the ESL students in the sample. The researchers argued that deaf students, and particularly those proficient in ASL, may acquire English vocabulary and function words differently than ESL hearing learners. Other scholars also have questioned the use of ESL pedagogies with deaf students (see Mayer, 2009). Finally, none of these studies used standardized assessments of language or literacy, although it was reported in the Ruiz (1995) study that the child subsequently scored in the 90th percentile on a test of spelling achievement. Four studies included samples of children’s writing, but researchers did not report formal 641 Downloaded from http://rer.aera.net at UNIV OF CINCINNATI on November 14, 2015

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analyses of those samples. In future research, it may be important to include assessments of language development as well as measures of phonology, given that the findings of these studies suggest that performance in these areas may be affecting deaf children’s age-appropriate literacy development. Spelling Seven of the 17 studies we reviewed investigated young deaf children’s spelling, and this topic was examined steadily across the 22-year span of our review. Researchers examined various aspects of children’s spelling, including the spelling strategies they employ, phoneme–grapheme knowledge, spelling development, and the relationship between reading and spelling achievement. One study investigated the efficacy of a fingerspelling intervention. A number of assessments were used in the studies, including writing samples, spelling tasks, developmental spelling tests, and standardized and diagnostic instruments. Spelling Strategies Two studies investigated the strategies deaf children use in the encoding process. In the earliest study, Padden (1993) collected 99 writing samples from 40 deaf children (ages 4 to 9 years) enrolled in residential schools for the deaf. The children were severely to profoundly deaf and native users of ASL. Padden (1993) asked the children to write their names, words they knew, sentences, or stories; however, most of the children produced lists of English words. Results of the study indicated that deaf children’s early spelling strategies reflected a visual approach: Spelling attempts mirrored the visual shape of the target word, and children used letters that were graphemically similar to the correct letter. Later, deaf children’s spelling attempts reflected a positional–graphemic strategy. For example, children were more likely to conform to standard rules for letters in the initial position, they only doubled letters that can legally occur as doubled letters in English orthography, and they rarely created impossible initial consonant clusters. Padden (1993) argued that the children were constructing theories about the graphemic and positional regularities of English orthography rather than using a phonemic approach to spelling. In the second study, a longitudinal investigation that spanned four and a half years, Mayer and Moskos (1998) examined the spelling development of 15 profoundly deaf children (ages 5 to 9 years) in the context of an integrated process writing classroom. The researchers grounded their study in sociocultural (Kress, 1997; Vygotsky, 1978; Wertsch, 1989) and cognitive-developmental (KarmiloffSmith, 1992; Olson, 1994) perspectives. Through the avenue of the writing conference and the examination of at least 50 written language samples per student from their cumulative writing folders, it was possible to identify and categorize the spelling strategies used by these young deaf writers as print-based, speechbased, or sign-based. In contrast to Padden’s (1993) study in which students were invited to write their names and other words they knew, these children were encouraged, through an invented spelling approach, to write words about which they had no prior orthographic knowledge. As a result, they regularly created spellings that included impossible consonant clusters and illegal letter combinations. They went beyond 642 Downloaded from http://rer.aera.net at UNIV OF CINCINNATI on November 14, 2015


visual, graphemic–positional theories of spelling and also made relationships between spoken language and print and signed language and print. Mayer and Moskos (1998) argued that although these strategies prove efficient for learning to spell, they prove to be less effective for learning to read and write. Phoneme–Grapheme Knowledge Leybaert and Lechat (2001) sought to determine if the nature of deaf children’s linguistic experience (Cued Speech vs. signed language) and the precocity of such experience (early vs. late exposure) would determine children’s use of phoneme– grapheme knowledge for spelling words. The researchers examined, in particular, grapheme dominance in spelling errors and the interaction between grapheme dominance and word frequency. Grapheme dominance is a statistical characteristic of phoneme–grapheme correspondences in which a particular grapheme is used most frequently to spell a phoneme. For example, the English phoneme /u/ is spelled most often with the grapheme EW (as in new). The researchers tested 67 deaf and 32 hearing children. The deaf children had profound hearing losses; 63 wore hearing aids and 4 had a cochlear implant. Six groups of children were given a spelling test: 20 younger and 5 older deaf children who were exposed to Cued Speech early at home (CS-home), 18 older deaf children who were exposed to Cued Speech only at school (CS-school), 14 deaf children who had deaf parents and were enrolled in schools for the deaf in which signed language was used (SL-home), 10 deaf children who had hearing parents and were exposed to signed language only in schools for the deaf (SL-school), and a control group of 16 younger and 16 older hearing children. The researchers hypothesized that the deaf children who were exposed early and intensively to Cued Speech (CS-home) would demonstrate, to a greater degree, the effect of grapheme dominance and the interaction between grapheme dominance and word frequency than CS-school, SL-home, and SL-school children. They also hypothesized that the majority of spelling errors in the CS-home children would be phonologically accurate. Results of the investigation confirmed these predictions. Only the hearing children and the CS-home children showed a significant effect of grapheme dominance and a significant interaction between grapheme dominance and word frequency. These children were better at spelling dominant versus nondominant graphemes and made a high and similar proportion of phonologically accurate spelling errors. The CS-school children exhibited a clear effect of grapheme dominance but a similar effect of frequency on dominant and nondominant graphemes, and most spelling errors were phonologically inaccurate. In the two groups of children exposed to signed language, there was no clear effect of grapheme dominance and most spelling errors were phonologically inaccurate. The researchers argued that a critical factor in the development of the phonological route to spelling is early and intensive exposure to a natural language and a visual system that makes all phonological distinctions easily perceivable (Leybaert & Lechat, 2001). Spelling Development Allman (2002) examined whether deaf students and hard of hearing students performed similarly to hearing students on a developmental spelling test. She 643 Downloaded from http://rer.aera.net at UNIV OF CINCINNATI on November 14, 2015

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argued that the deaf population is not a homogenous group and that deaf children’s and hard of hearing children’s performance should be separated in research findings (which is not typically the case). Fifty kindergarten and first grade children (ages 5 to 7 years) participated in the project: 7 were deaf, 9 were hard of hearing, and 34 were hearing. The deaf children and the hard of hearing children all used Total Communication. Allman assessed the three groups of children at the end of kindergarten, across first grade, and again in second grade. Results indicated that although the achievement of the hard of hearing children reflected the developmental sequence for hearing children, the achievement of the deaf children did not. The deaf children’s performance on alphabet knowledge, concept of word, and word recognition tasks was higher than the performance of either the hard of hearing children or the hearing children; however, the deaf children’s scores for phonemic awareness were significantly lower. The hard of hearing group outperformed the hearing group on alphabet knowledge, concept of word, and word recognition. The hearing group had slightly higher scores on phonemic awareness than the hard of hearing group. Interestingly, there were no statistically significant differences between the hard of hearing and hearing groups on any of the measures. Allman (2002) suggested that the deaf children’s spelling development differed significantly from the other two groups because the deaf children used speechreading, sign cues, and known spelling patterns to spell, rather than auditory cues. Relationship Between Reading and Spelling Achievement Kyle and Harris (2006) compared the performance of deaf children and hearing children on a range of literacy-related tasks, including spelling, to identify the concurrent predictors of reading and spelling achievement in young deaf children. The 29 deaf children (ages 7 to 8 years) were reading-age matched with 31 hearing children (ages 5 to 8 years). The deaf children had severe to profound hearing losses; seven children were fitted with cochlear implants and the remaining children wore hearing aids. Four of the children used Total Communication, 18 used signed language, and 7 communicated through spoken language. Results of the investigation demonstrated differences between the predictors of literacy in deaf and hearing children. For the deaf children, reading and spelling were highly associated yet exhibited different patterns of correlations and predictors. Spelling ability was not associated with other literacy-related tasks and was not affected by the degree of hearing loss. Conversely, reading achievement was predicted by the degree of hearing loss and correlated with speechreading and productive vocabulary. For hearing children, age predicted reading and spelling ability (most likely due to selection criterion). Results also indicated that there were no statistically significant differences between the deaf and hearing children in their overall spelling scores. The researchers suggest that this similarity in spelling scores may indicate that the deaf children’s spelling abilities were delayed for their chronological age but appropriate for their reading level (Kyle & Harris, 2006). They also suggested, as did Mayer and Moskos (1998), that reading and spelling in deaf children may be disparate skills. In a subsequent, longitudinal study, Kyle and Harris (2011) examined whether the discrepancy between reading and spelling development was also 644 Downloaded from http://rer.aera.net at UNIV OF CINCINNATI on November 14, 2015


exhibited in younger deaf children. The researchers followed the emergent literacy development of 24 deaf and 23 hearing children over 2 years. The deaf children (mean age 5.8 years) had severe to profound hearing losses; 17 wore digital hearing aids and 7 were fitted with cochlear implants. Three of the children used Total Communication, 10 used signed language, and 11 communicated through spoken language. The children were given a battery of literacy-related assessments over the 2-year period. Results indicated that deaf and hearing children use slightly different reading strategies over the first 2 years of schooling. In the beginning stages of reading, the deaf and hearing children made similar progress, but then their trajectories began to diverge. The findings suggested that for the hearing children, speechreading was longitudinally correlated to reading and spelling. For the deaf children, the longitudinal correlates of beginning reading were vocabulary, letter–sound knowledge, and speechreading. For spelling ability, only letter name knowledge was longitudinally related. These findings corroborated those reported earlier by Kyle and Harris (2006) suggesting different developmental patterns in the reading and spelling of young deaf children. Fingerspelling Intervention Using a quasi-experimental pretest–posttest comparison group design, van Staden and le Roux (2010) investigated whether fingerspell coding (i.e., fingerspelling) could facilitate deaf children’s learning of English words. The researchers also examined whether fingerspelling and visual imaging techniques would help deaf children to retrieve those words from long-term memory. They grounded their study in bilingual–bicultural approaches to literacy instruction and Vygotskian (1978) theories of social-constructivism which maintain that children’s higher mental functioning is rooted in social interaction with adults and more capable peers. The 64 profoundly deaf residential students (ages 7–11 years) who participated in the study were in first through third grade and used South African Sign Language to communicate. Standardized and diagnostic tests were used as pretest–posttest measures. Twice each week for 12 months, the 32 children in the intervention group participated in the Spelling Mastery Program, which consisted of interactive computer-based exercises and reinforcement worksheets that taught students to use fingerspelling to visually analyze printed words in ways that the researchers suggested were similar to the sounding-out strategies of hearing children as they decode English words. In addition, classroom teachers taught the children to create visual images of high-frequency words. The 32 children in the comparison group continued with the school’s normal spelling curriculum. Results of the study indicated that the intervention group demonstrated significant improvement in spelling performance (an effect size of .894) whereas the comparison group showed only slight improvement. The researchers argued that fingerspell coding can provide deaf children with a phonological–orthographic link to written language and when combined with visual imaging strategies help deaf children to construct and store visual images of printed words in memory and also retrieve those words from long-term memory.


Synthesis Despite the diversity of participants’ educational setting and use of hearing technologies, the focus in the majority of these studies was on the strategies that deaf children use in the encoding process at the word level. Padden (1993), Allman (2002), and van Staden and le Roux (2010) reported that deaf children use visually based strategies that exploit fingerspelling, visual imaging, signed language cues, and knowledge of the orthography (e.g., the graphemic–positional regularities of English; the visual shape of the word) in the encoding process. Leybaert and Lechat (2001) suggested that deaf children can use phonological strategies in learning to spell if they are exposed to a natural language via a visual system such as Cued Speech that makes phonological (i.e., auditory) distinctions apparent. Mayer and Moskos (1998) indicated that deaf children make use of both visual and phonological strategies in the encoding process. In three investigations, researchers concluded that there is a disparity between the reading and spelling development of young deaf children (Kyle & Harris, 2006, 2011; Mayer & Moskos, 1998)—and two of those studies tracked children’s performance longitudinally over time (Kyle & Harris, 2011; Mayer & Moskos, 1998). In fact, Mayer and Moskos (1998) followed children for more than 4 years and determined that the strategies deaf children used effectively in learning to spell did not support learning to read. When deaf children’s spelling achievement was compared with hearing children’s spelling achievement, results were mixed. Whereas Allman (2002) found that the spelling achievement of deaf children did not reflect the developmental sequence for hearing children, Kyle and Harris (2006) found no statistically significant differences between deaf and hearing children’s overall spelling scores. The researchers suggested, however, that the deaf children’s spelling abilities were delayed for their chronological age but appropriate for their reading level. Other researchers also have suggested that deaf children’s literacy acquisition is developmentally similar to that of hearing children, albeit delayed (Paul, Wang, & Williams, 2013). Writing Instruction With regard to our second research question, we found no studies investigating writing instruction with young deaf children between 1990 and 2007 and only three studies in all. Each study investigated an approach to writing instruction that is commonly used with hearing children but was adapted for use with deaf children. Invented Spelling-Cued Speech Sirois, Boisclair, and Giasson (2008) investigated the effectiveness of a 2-year Invented Spelling-Cued Speech intervention on the phonological awareness, alphabetic principle, and reading and writing performance of 31 deaf first graders. The children had severe to profound hearing losses; 10 children had cochlear implants and 21 used amplification. Two children used Signed French and 29 children used an oral communication mode. The researchers positioned their study within dual-route processing models (Coltheart, 1978; Ehri, 1999) that suggest the existence of two access routes to the lexicon. Through direct access, the 646 Downloaded from http://rer.aera.net at UNIV OF CINCINNATI on November 14, 2015


reader associates a written word with a previously acquired orthographic representation. Indirect access requires a phonological analysis of the written word and use of phoneme–grapheme correspondences. The pedagogical intervention was designed to support the children’s development of a dual access route to the lexicon based on the use of both phonological and lexical processes. For 2 years, the children participated in the daily intervention in which they used invented spelling to write their own stories. Using Cued Speech, teachers supported the children’s writing process by helping them to “find the sounds in the words and the letters needed to write down these sounds” (Sirois et al., 2008, p. 343). Teachers continually evaluated the developmental level of the children’s invented spelling and adjusted their support accordingly. Phonological procedures were emphasized to support children’s acquisition of the alphabetic principle, but teachers also worked with children on syntax, text structure, and narrative development. To assess the effectiveness of the instructional intervention, the researchers measured invented spelling and phonological awareness three times across the year, and reading and writing tests were given at the end of the year. Results of the correlational analysis indicated strong links between phonological awareness and invented spelling and between invented spelling, reading, writing, and syntax. Moreover, links between reading and writing tasks were also strong. The reading test was highly correlated with syntax, and the writing test was highly correlated with vocabulary, syntax, and spelling. The researchers compared these results to those obtained by a group of 25 hearing first graders who had not participated in the pedagogical intervention and found no significant differences between the groups on any of the tests. Despite significant hearing loss, the deaf children developed an advanced level of phonemic awareness and acquired the alphabetic principle, and they completed first grade with results similar to hearing peers. Sirois et al. (2008) argued that the intervention’s focus on invented spelling (supported by Cued Speech) and the reading and writing connection contributed to these outcomes. Morning Message Wolbers (2008) adapted the Morning Message instructional approach (see Graves, 1982, 1994) for use with deaf students. Morning Message in the early literacy program typically consists of one or two sentences constructed through dialogue between the teacher and children about an event that has occurred in the classroom or a topic or learning experience from the curriculum. As the teacher writes the message on large chart paper, she engages the children in actively thinking about the construction of the text, focusing on letters, sounds, and conventions of print (see Wasik & Hindman, 2011). In the upper grades, the writing is a recursive process, involving generating ideas, revising, and editing. The teacher models and prompts students to explain how lower- and higher-order constructions can be made; her dialogue with students is a critical pedagogical tool for making writing strategies and processes explicit. Wolbers (2008) implemented an adapted Morning Message intervention in two self-contained classrooms for deaf students in public elementary schools (N = 8) and one middle school classroom at a residential school for the deaf (N = 8). The programs espoused a Total Communication approach. The students’ hearing 647 Downloaded from http://rer.aera.net at UNIV OF CINCINNATI on November 14, 2015

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losses ranged from mild to profound. Although only two second-grade children (ages 8 and 9 years) participated in this study, we included this investigation in our review because Morning Message is an instructional activity used widely in early childhood programs (Wasik & Hindman, 2011). Wolbers used a pretest– posttest design to investigate the effectiveness of the instructional intervention in supporting word identification and both higher- and lower-order writing skills. She grounded her study in previous research on writing but did not explicate a theoretical frame. After the 21-day intervention, a comparison of pretest and posttest scores on writing and reading measures indicated that students made significant gains on word identification, the use of higher-order, genre-specific traits (e.g., introduction, details, conclusion), and lower-order writing skills (e.g., appropriate use of prepositions, subject–verb agreement). Students also significantly improved their ability to revise and edit. Results showed neither gains nor losses on conventions or total word count. Wolbers (2008) suggested that Morning Message may have “a promising future” (p. 270) in the literacy education of deaf students because it balances instruction on both lower- and higher-order skills within a highly interactive writing activity. Interactive Writing Williams (2011) adapted Interactive Writing (McCarrier, Pinnell, & Fountas, 2000) for use with deaf children. Like Morning Message, Interactive Writing grounds the teaching of writing within the context of an authentic writing activity, but it is most appropriate for use in kindergarten and first grade. The teacher and children begin the lesson by discussing their ideas for a group composition, which is often a response to a storybook they have read. They collaboratively plan the text that will be written, and the teacher begins to write on a large writing tablet. As the teacher writes, she makes the writing process explicit by thinking out loud and mirroring a mature writer’s cognitive processes. She focuses students’ attention on letter–sound correspondences, common orthographic patterns (e.g., VCE), and conventions of print. As the teacher guides the lesson, she incorporates an innovative technique specific to interactive writing: she “shares the pen” (McCarrier et al., 2000, p. xvii). The teacher hands the pen to individual children and asks them to write specific letters or words, or to add the appropriate capitalization or punctuation. The goal of sharing the pen is to focus students’ attention on specific aspects of the writing process. As the group encodes the message, the teacher overtly demonstrates the use of specific spelling strategies and then scaffolds the children’s ability to use those cognitive tools as they share the pen. The text is re-read at the end of the lesson, and the teacher models how to revise and edit. Finally, the teacher discusses how children can use what they have learned to support their independent writing. In a year-long qualitative case study, Williams (2011) examined the use of an adaptation of Interactive Writing instruction with deaf children. The study was grounded in theoretical perspectives that acknowledge the situated nature of cognition (Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989) and advocate instructional approaches that embed learning in authentic activity. The researcher also embraced the 648 Downloaded from http://rer.aera.net at UNIV OF CINCINNATI on November 14, 2015


qualitative similarity hypothesis (Paul & Lee, 2010), which posits that deaf children learn to read and write in ways that are similar to hearing children, although their development may be delayed. The study was conducted in a kindergarten classroom in a private school for the deaf that espoused a Total Communication approach. The six children who participated in the study evidenced hearing losses from mild to profound. All of them used personal and/or group amplification, and one child had a cochlear implant. Across the academic year, Williams (2011) videotaped and analyzed 45 interactive writing lessons. Results of the analysis indicated that the teacher used explicit instruction and modeling to teach her students what it means “to write” and how to go about it. She emphasized the relationships between signed language, spoken language, and written language and helped students to transform their face-to-face language into print by relating signs and spoken words to written counterparts. She taught fundamental concepts about English orthography and specific conventions of print to make each text readable. However, she taught few phoneme–grapheme correspondences and did not emphasize phonological processing. Through their participation, the children demonstrated their understanding that writing involves transforming face-to-face language into written words. They learned fundamental concepts about print, basic conventions of written language, specific alphabet knowledge, and the ability to read and write a number of highutility words. However, none of the children appeared to acquire the alphabetic principle. Williams (2011) concluded that Interactive Writing instruction has the potential to support deaf children’s early writing development but must be supplemented by techniques that make the phonemes of English visible. Synthesis The fact that we identified only three studies on writing instruction across the 22-year timeframe of our review demonstrates the paucity of research on this topic. All three studies employed adaptations of instructional approaches that have been used successfully with hearing children (Invented Spelling, Morning Message, Interactive Writing), and researchers reported positive outcomes. In particular, Interactive Writing supported deaf children’s acquisition of alphabet knowledge, fundamental concepts about print, and the conventions of written language, whereas Morning Message supported deaf students’ higher- and lowerlevel genre-specific writing skills. Both approaches supported deaf students’ acquisition of word identification skills. When used with hearing children, all three instructional approaches incorporate explicit instruction on phoneme–grapheme correspondences. However, the teacher in the Williams (2011) study did not tap the potential of Interactive Writing to teach letter–sound relationships, and consequently the deaf children did not acquire the alphabetic principle. Wolbers (2008) did not specify whether Morning Message in her study included instruction on phoneme–grapheme correspondences; nor did she indicate whether students had acquired the alphabetic principle. In the Sirois et al. (2008) study, teachers supported Invented Spelling with Cued Speech, which provided an avenue for teaching phoneme–grapheme correspondences and led to the children’s acquisition of the alphabetic principle. This study 649 Downloaded from http://rer.aera.net at UNIV OF CINCINNATI on November 14, 2015

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employed standardized measures of reading and phonology and evidenced ageappropriate outcomes. Unless children acquire the alphabetic principle they cannot become proficient readers and writers. To support young deaf children’s writing development, whether in deaf education or general education settings, all three of these instructional approaches must be modified in ways that allow deaf children to acquire the alphabetic principle (e.g., employing the use of hearing technologies and/or adapting the approach to include the use of Visual Phonics or Cued Speech). Assessment With regard to our third research question, we found no studies in the 22-year timeframe of our review that investigated the use of assessment to track deaf children’s writing development over time or to inform writing instruction in early literacy programs. This is clearly an area in need of further research. Theoretical Frameworks Our fourth research question examined the nature of the theory (or theories) that researchers used to frame their investigations. In the studies we examined, researchers used a number of theories to frame their work. From a cognitive perspective, developmental stage theory (Ferreiro & Teberosky, 1982) and dual-route processing models (Coltheart, 1978; Ehri, 1999) were employed. From a social perspective, social interactionist (Dyson, 1991) and sociocultural theories (Street, 1995; Heath, 1983) were applied. In addition, cognitive and social perspectives were merged when researchers took an emergent literacy stance (Teale & Sulzby, 1986, 1989) or framed their work within theories of social-constructivism (Vygotsky, 1978) or situated cognition (Brown et al., 1989). In one study, researchers applied bilingual theories (Cummins, 1991) to deaf children’s literacy learning. Researchers also employed two theories specific to deaf learners: the signprint-meaning connection (Andrews & Mason, 1986a, 1986b) and the qualitative similarity hypothesis (Paul & Lee, 2010). In nine studies (53%), researchers grounded their work in the extant research literature but did not explicate a theoretical frame. This omission was particularly evident in the research on spelling. Research Methodologies Our final research question examined the research methodologies that researchers used to conduct their investigations, and our analysis indicated that a range of methodologies was used. Although the earlier work (1990s) was decidedly more qualitative in design, overall, quantitative methods and approaches were used most often. Qualitative case studies, including those with longitudinal designs, were used in five projects. Descriptive methods, clinical interviews, and microethnography were each used in one study. Four studies used correlational designs, including longitudinal investigations and studies with comparison groups. In two studies, researchers used quantitative methods to analyze writing samples. One recent study used a pretest-post design and another used a quasi-experimental design. In one study, the researcher used both quantitative and qualitative analyses. Interestingly, although longitudinal studies have been conducted, none tracked children into the later school years to determine whether these young deaf learners 650 Downloaded from http://rer.aera.net at UNIV OF CINCINNATI on November 14, 2015


eventually become proficient, age-appropriate writers. Finally, we noted that no replication studies have been conducted. Researchers used smaller, in-depth qualitative case studies to investigate the broad construct of emergent and early literacy development, documenting, for example, deaf children’s knowledge and understandings about print and the connections children made between spoken language, signed language, and written language. Conversely, in larger, quantitative studies, researchers examined more specific constructs, such as deaf children’s vocabulary use, knowledge of phoneme–grapheme correspondences, and spelling development. A number of research designs were used to examine specific pedagogical interventions, including qualitative case studies, correlational designs, pretest–posttest models, and a quasi-experimental study. In all four types of studies, researchers reported that the instructional approach was supportive of deaf children’s literacy learning; however, the extent to which children demonstrated age-appropriate performance was not reported. This omission might be more a feature of the specific measures that were used than any inherent problem with the research design. The use of longitudinal designs allowed researchers to document aspects of writing and spelling development that were not apparent with other research designs, and arguably revealed some of the more robust findings in terms of learning trajectories and outcomes. For example, the results of Ruiz’s (1995) longitudinal qualitative case study of her daughter’s early writing development were similar to the findings of shorter qualitative case studies, particularly with regard to children’s understandings of fundamental concepts about print; however, the use of a longitudinal design allowed Ruiz to report that the child scored in the 90th percentile on a third-grade spelling achievement test. Mayer and Moskos’ (1998) use of a longitudinal, qualitative design allowed them to collect and analyze more than 750 writing samples across a four and a half year period in their investigation of the strategies that deaf students use to spell words. In comparison, Padden (1993) used an interview approach that allowed an analysis of only 185 words. In both studies, researchers documented deaf children’s use of visual–orthographic strategies, but deaf students in the Mayer and Moskos study also used phonologically based strategies to spell words. Although deaf students in Padden’s (1993) study only doubled letters that can legally occur as doubled letters in English orthography and rarely created impossible initial consonant clusters, deaf students in the Mayer and Moskos study regularly created spellings that included impossible consonant clusters and illegal letter combinations. The longitudinal design and considerably larger data corpus in the Mayer and Moskos study may have made it possible for the researchers to document these dramatically different results and allowed for insights into what children would do in a more naturalistic, less controlled setting. Kyle and Harris (2006) used a correlational design and subsequently (2011) used a longitudinal, correlational design to investigate the predictors of reading and spelling achievement in deaf and hearing children. In both studies, reading achievement in deaf children was predicted by vocabulary and speechreading. However, spelling achievement was predicted by reading in the first study and letter–name knowledge in the longitudinal study. Findings from both studies suggested that spelling in deaf children exhibits a different developmental pattern 651 Downloaded from http://rer.aera.net at UNIV OF CINCINNATI on November 14, 2015

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than reading. For the hearing children, speechreading predicted reading as well as spelling achievement. Use of a longitudinal design with comparison groups allowed the researchers to document that deaf and hearing children used slightly different reading strategies over the first 2 years of instruction and indicated that although they made similar progress in the beginning stages of reading, thereafter their trajectories began to diverge, with a resulting negative impact for the deaf cohort. The Nature of the Evidence Reviewed What becomes most apparent on a consideration of this review of the literature is the paucity of research on young deaf children’s writing. Only 17 studies have been conducted in the 22-year timeframe—less than one study per year. Perhaps not surprisingly, 41% of those studies examined spelling, which is easier to investigate than composition. Moreover, no studies have been replicated. Another striking observation is that, with respect to any parameter examined, the research is diverse. For example, the population of children studied includes children with hearing losses extending from mild to profound, using a range of hearing technologies (e.g., hearing aids, cochlear implants), educated in a variety of instructional settings (from the general education classroom to residential schools for the deaf/Deaf), and communicating in spoken language, signed language, or both. The research problems also have been diverse, as have the theories and methodologies used to conduct the studies. Given this diversity, the small number of studies conducted, and the lack of replication studies, it is challenging to draw any definitive conclusions from this body of work. That said, we would suggest that the following themes can be identified: (a) there are clear indications that young deaf children learn how print works, see writing as a tool for communication, and can engage in the writing process; (b) there is a debate as to the nature of the strategies that young deaf writers can employ in the encoding process (i.e., visual–orthographic or phonologically based); (c) there is a disparity between the performance of young deaf and hearing writers with respect to the encoding process (i.e., gaining control of the alphabetic principle); and (d) there is little evidence that young deaf children achieve writing outcomes commensurate with hearing age peers. We discuss the significance of these themes in the section to follow and then offer implications for future research. Discussion The research we reviewed on emergent and early writing development, as well as writing instruction, indicates that in the early childhood years, deaf children, like hearing children, acquire fundamental concepts about print and the conventions of written language and demonstrate their understanding that written language represents and communicates meaning (Andrews & Gonzales, 1992; Bustos, 2008; Mayer & Moskos, 1998; Ruiz, 1995; Williams, 1998). Young deaf children make connections between face-to-face language and text; they connect fingerspelling to printed letters and signs to printed words (Andrews & Gonzales, 1992; Mayer & Moskos, 1998; Ruiz, 1995; van Staden & le Roux, 2010; Williams, 1998, 2011). They use social resources and cultural media as material for 652 Downloaded from http://rer.aera.net at UNIV OF CINCINNATI on November 14, 2015


constructing their written narratives (Kim, 2012; Williams, 1998). In our view, this evidence demonstrates that young deaf and hearing writers share comparable trajectories in the earliest phases of literacy development. To identify solutions to the challenges young deaf children face in learning to read and write, therefore, researchers must look beyond the earliest phases of development. With respect to the nature of the strategies that young deaf writers employ in the encoding process, the findings of our review indicate that deaf children use both visual–orthographic (Allman, 2002; Padden, 1993; Ruiz, 1995; van Staden & le Roux, 2010) and phonologically based strategies (Mayer & Moskos, 1998; Sirios et al., 2008). Most studies, however, did not report whether children had acquired the alphabetic principle—a foundational conceptual milestone that is requisite in learning to read and write. Therefore, we call for investigations that go beyond students’ strategy use to explore young deaf children’s acquisition of the alphabetic principle as well as studies that examine the pedagogical approaches that support such acquisition. There is evidence from the studies reviewed here, for example, to suggest that Cued Speech can scaffold young deaf children’s acquisition of the alphabetic principle and their knowledge of phoneme–grapheme correspondences, thus supporting both early spelling (Leybaert & Lechat, 2001) and writing development (Sirois, et al., 2008). More studies are needed to corroborate these findings. Furthermore, although Visual Phonics has been studied as a scaffold for decoding in reading development (Narr, 2008; Trezek & Wang, 2006; Trezek, Wang, Woods, Gampp, & Paul, 2007), it has not been studied as a support for encoding in young deaf children’s writing development, although arguments have been made for its potential efficacy in this regard (Mayer, 2007; Williams, 2011). One study indicated that deaf children who are highly proficient in ASL use English vocabulary in their writing in ways that are compensate with their hearing peers (Singleton et al., 2004). Most extant scholarship, however, suggests otherwise, demonstrating that even ASL-proficient deaf children of deaf parents do not attain the levels of achievement typical of their hearing peers (see Marschark & Wauters, 2008, for a review). Although native language proficiency in ASL can be supportive of learning to read and write in English, in our view it is not sufficient. For the majority of deaf students, competence in a face to face form of English is also necessary, particularly for acquisition of the alphabetic principle and the development of English syntax and grammar (Mayer & Leigh, 2010), just as is the case for hearing bilingual learners (Bialystok, 2001, 2011). Overall, it is critical to note that the research we reviewed did not provide strong evidence for performance commensurate with hearing age peers, particularly with respect to issues of English grammar and syntax. In fact, Mayer and Moskos (1998) and Kim (2012) found that deaf children’s written narratives did not evidence control of English grammar, syntax, or narrative story structure, and Singleton et al. (2004) reported that the written retellings of the deaf children in their study lacked important grammatical elements. In only one study did young deaf children achieve age-appropriate outcomes with regard to syntax (Sirois et al., 2008), and it was in this study that children acquired the alphabetic principle through the use of a Cued Speech/Invented Spelling intervention. We contend that these findings call into question claims that orthographic strategies can stand-in 653 Downloaded from http://rer.aera.net at UNIV OF CINCINNATI on November 14, 2015

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for phonological strategies in learning to write and raise questions about the extent to which both orthographic and phonological strategies need to be taught in early literacy programs for deaf children. In fact, investigations of spelling as a discrete skill (e.g., Kyle & Harris, 2006, 2011; Leybaert & Lechat, 2001) provided further insights into the importance of phonology in the encoding process, shedding light on the ways in which deaf children can use phoneme–grapheme correspondences in making links between language and text at the word level. A key point to be emphasized here is that the focus of early literacy research among young deaf children needs to move beyond the word level to the level of language. That is, rather than focusing on spelling or vocabulary, future research should examine deaf children’s use of English grammar and syntax within connected discourse (Mayer, 2007; Paul et al., 2013). We base this assertion on the findings of two different lines of research. First, there is a reported disconnect between reading and spelling in deaf students (Kyle & Harris, 2006, 2011; Mayer & Moskos, 1998), which is a different pattern from the pattern documented among hearing children of similar age, for whom a strong relationship between reading and spelling typically exists (Caravolas, Hulme, & Snowling, 2001; Nation & Hulme, 1997). In general, deaf children spell well for the limited set of words they know. But, unlike hearing children, they typically rely on visual–orthographic strategies rather than auditory–phonological strategies (i.e., invented spelling) that would indicate they are acquiring the alphabetic principle. This failure to acquire the alphabetic principle may explain, at least in part, the reported disconnect between reading and spelling development for young deaf children. This disconnect between reading and spelling may have significant implications for early writing development, as well, given the connections that have been documented between reading and writing development in early childhood (Bear et al., 2008; Chall, 1996; Clay, 1983; Mayer, 2010; Paul, 2009; Shanahan, 2006; Williams, 2004, 2011). Second, recent research on grammar and syntax indicates that, in general, deaf students use less syntactically complex structures (Koutsoubou, 2010) and make more errors in their use of syntactic structures than do hearing children (Van Beijsterveldt & van Hell, 2009). To comprehend a text or to compose a text, deaf students must have control of English syntax and grammatical structure. Knowledge of lexical items (i.e., vocabulary) is not sufficient. Miller’s (2000, 2005) work is illustrative here. Miller found that elementary and adolescent deaf students generated the meaning of sentences while reading by interpreting the meaning of content words; they did not process syntactic information conveyed by word order. Based on the findings of these two lines of research, we suggest that the focus on word-level analysis (spelling and vocabulary) in the studies reviewed here is an area of weakness in the current body of evidence. This weakness must be addressed in future investigations. Conceptual Frameworks We would argue that two distinct conceptual frameworks underpin the studies reviewed here. The first perspective spans the entire 22 years of our review. Proponents of this view contend that deaf children can use signed language (i.e., ASL) to learn to read and write English through the sign-print-meaning connection 654 Downloaded from http://rer.aera.net at UNIV OF CINCINNATI on November 14, 2015


(Andrews & Gonzales, 1992). This position holds that deaf children use visual (Allman, 2002; Bustos, 2008; Ruiz 1995), including positional–graphemic (Padden, 1998), strategies to spell words. The argument is that deaf children can learn to read and write without a “well-developed, internal phonemic system” (Ruiz, 1995, p. 216; see also Padden, 1998), and should be taught using visually oriented strategies that make explicit links between fingerspelling, signed language, and written language (e.g., van Staden & le Roux, 2010). Bilingual– bicultural approaches (e.g., Singleton et al., 2004; van Staden & le Roux, 2010) fall into this category, as it is argued that a naturally acquired first language (ASL) provides a sufficient foundation for learning the second language (English) without the use of phonology. Advocates of the second conceptual framework argue that deaf children need to acquire the alphabetic principle to learn to read and write (Leybaert & Lechat, 2001; Mayer & Moskos, 1998; Sirois, et al., 2008; Williams, 2011). This second perspective is reflected more often in recent research, as it has become evident over time that deaf children are not following the trajectories of their hearing peers beyond the earliest phases of literacy learning (e.g., Kyle & Harris, 2011; Mayer & Moskos, 1998; see also Mayer & Trezek, in press). Interestingly, this dichotomy in conceptual frameworks and thinking was reflected in the three studies of writing instruction examined in this review. The classroom teacher in the Williams (2011) study on Interactive Writing did not emphasize the alphabetic principle or the use of phonology to support deaf children’s writing, nor did the teacher in the Wolbers (2008) study on the use of Morning Message. In contrast, teachers in the Sirois et al. (2008) study focused on phonology and development of the alphabetic principle via their use of Invented Spelling supported by Cued Speech (which also provides access to the English language). Importantly, it is only in this study that the deaf children evidenced age-appropriate development in the encoding process and learning to write. Implications for Future Research We recommend that in future work researchers attend to the conceptual and theoretical frameworks they embrace, the research methodologies employed, and the population of participants that are studied. If we hope to better understand the nature of the knowledge and skills that underpin learning to write, and thus identify the instructional practices that will best support young deaf children’s writing development, researchers must appeal to conceptual frameworks that are grounded in theoretically framed research findings. We must move from theory to research to instructional practices, and we must improve both our theorizing and our research designs (see Valencia, 2011; Vellutino, 2003). Grounding one’s work in the extant literature is an essential first step in the research process, but a theoretical framework provides an important interpretive context for the study’s findings. Dressman (2007) called for close links between theory and evidence, suggesting that theoretically framed research has the potential to strengthen the arguments researchers make about their interpretations of research findings and the implications of their work. Duke and Martin (2011) argued that researchers should provide “the research and theory that came beforehand” (p. 12) as part of the rationale for their investigations. They also suggested 655 Downloaded from http://rer.aera.net at UNIV OF CINCINNATI on November 14, 2015

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that the inclusion of previous research/theory is a standard of quality for literacy research methodologies. When researchers explicitly ground their studies within particular theoretical frameworks, they assist their readers in making sense of the findings and understanding the implications of those findings, thus addressing the knowledge–practice gap that often hinders the identification of effective instructional practices. In this review, more than half of the studies (53%) lacked an explicitly stated theoretical framework. In terms of research methodologies, given the paucity of work on young deaf children’s writing, all types of research are needed and welcomed. We would argue, however, that it would be especially important to design studies that not only measure current performance but also track children’s performance longitudinally over time. During the early childhood period, deaf children appear to follow developmental trajectories similar to those of their hearing counterparts (Mayer, 2007; Paul, 2009, 2010; Williams, 2004, 2011), and these indications of a parallel start should predict the development of age-appropriate outcomes at later stages. But, this has not been found, raising questions as to when, how, and in what ways the literacy learning trajectories of deaf learners differ from those of their hearing peers, and the extent to which this difference is evidenced in the early years (Allman, 2002; Mayer, 1998, 2007; Williams, 2011). Multiple-year, longitudinal investigations might be able to address these important questions. It is worthy of note that in the corpus we reviewed, three of the four longitudinal studies that reported outcomes over time were focused on spelling. One longitudinal case study examined emergent and early writing development, but that study only reported one outcome measure for one child on spelling achievement. Longitudinal investigations of writing development seem especially important given the historically poor outcomes that have been documented for deaf learners in this regard. We challenge researchers to track young deaf children’s performance over time to determine if they actually learn to read and write at age-appropriate levels in the elementary school years and beyond. Notably absent in this review was the use of single-subject experimental designs, which recently have been used to investigate young deaf children’s reading development and the efficacy of specific reading interventions (e.g., Bergeron, Lederberg, Easterbrooks, Miller, & Connor, 2009; Syverud, Guardino, & Selznick, 2009). Interestingly, in those studies, researchers combined single-subject experimental designs with qualitative case studies to provide integrated, detailed analyses of the impact of specific reading interventions on young deaf children’s early reading development. Combining these two research designs might also be fruitful for investigating young deaf children’s writing development and innovative approaches to writing instruction (Paul et al., 2013). Furthermore, as an aspect of the study’s design, it would be essential to include measures that will provide an evidence base that documents writing outcomes. This evidence base can take a range of forms depending on the nature of the research question(s) and methodology (e.g., standardized measures, written language samples, discourse analysis), but plays an important role in demonstrating the extent to which an intervention has been efficacious (e.g., that children are learning to write; are performing commensurate with hearing age peers). These types of data would provide the strongest basis for suggesting that any pedagogical 656 Downloaded from http://rer.aera.net at UNIV OF CINCINNATI on November 14, 2015


recommendation or instructional practice is actually developing the writing abilities of young deaf children (i.e., improved and/or age-appropriate outcomes), and is targeting the areas that have been proven to be most salient in learning to write. In the studies on children’s writing development and writing instruction we reviewed here, 70% lacked this kind of evidence base. Going forward, we appeal to researchers to include measures in the study’s design that will document deaf children’s performance as evidence that a specific pedagogy has been effective. Finally, it would be important to include the range of learners that represent the diversity of deaf children beyond the typical variables of level of hearing loss, educational placement, and communication approach. For example, there will be increasing numbers of students whose home language is not English and greater numbers of young deaf children with complex needs. Reports indicate that up to 40% of children identified through newborn screening will have a disability in conjunction with their hearing loss (e.g., vision impairment, physical disability, learning disability) (McCracken & Turner, 2012). In this review, only one study made reference to including children with complex needs. Moreover, researchers will want to become more cognizant of the emerging cohort of deaf children whose demographics are quite different from those of the previous cohorts due to advancements in hearing technologies and early intervention programs. For example, it would be important to include more participants who are educated in general education classrooms as this is where the majority of deaf children are now being educated. Only two of the 17 studies in this review included children attending school in general education settings. Along with the challenge to increase diversity comes the issue of increasing numbers of participants in future research. This is an ongoing challenge when researching a low-incidence population. In this review, the largest sample of deaf students was 72. That said, there are types of research that are accomplished most effectively with smaller groups of participants, particularly qualitative case studies and ethnographies. With those methodologies, a large N is neither desirable nor expected. Therefore, we would recommend replication studies, in which researchers from different institutions work as teams, or research clusters, to pool participant numbers as a way to increase the overall N in future research. Such an approach may make it more feasible to secure a sample with a substantial number of participants, and with a range of characteristics that are more reflective of the current population of deaf children. Moreover, replication studies can serve to corroborate earlier findings, making them more robust, or, alternatively, offer rival explanations, both of which are important to building an evidence base that can inform pedagogy and practice, as well as future research (Mertens, 2014; Yin, 2014). We would argue that future research that attends to these important elements of design will be conceptually and methodologically more rigorous and thus better positioned to provide empirically based findings to a variety of stakeholders interested in the education of young deaf children. Early childhood educators may find potential solutions to the challenges they face, as well as directions for classroombased inquiry. Teacher educators might develop courses of study, plan instruction, and guide teacher-research projects in teacher preparation programs. Experienced researchers and novices alike could more effectively refine and develop research agendas and prepare proposals to funding agencies. In addition, policy makers, 657 Downloaded from http://rer.aera.net at UNIV OF CINCINNATI on November 14, 2015

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professional organizations, and funding agencies may find the outcomes of such rigorous studies informative in guiding their decisions on sponsorship and support in the field of deaf education. Limitations and Conclusion The potential limitations of this study need to be considered. First, it is possible that our search terms were insufficient and pertinent studies were missed. Second, because our review focused on peer-reviewed studies, we did not include studies reported in book chapters or as part of conference proceedings. Third, our reading and analysis of each study was an interpretive process that had the potential to influence the findings we reported. Arguably, the most significant finding of this review was the decided lack of research on both the writing development and writing instruction of deaf children in the early childhood years. This dearth of research is particularly troubling given the importance of the early years in laying the foundation for later literacy learning, especially in the current context of earlier identification of hearing loss and advances in hearing technologies, including bilateral cochlear implantation and implantation at increasingly younger ages (i.e., by or before 1 year), that have raised expectations for age-appropriate literacy outcomes. Clearly there is a need to revive interest in researching literacy development in the younger deaf population, and we would hope that the current keen interest in tracking speech and language development in children with cochlear implants will expand to encompass literacy as well—particularly in the area of writing. It may be that this work also will inform early writing development in children with milder hearing losses—a group that has too often been ignored in the research. As the emphasis in the field continues to shift to the early years, there will be a growing need for well-designed early literacy research to inform policy, pedagogy, and practice in deaf education. We suggest that this review affords a starting place for addressing that need. It is clear that we currently do not have the requisite evidence base in the deaf population, and we often rely on research done with hearing children to inform our thinking. Although there is much to be gained from looking outside our field (Mayer & Trezek, in press; Paul et al., 2013), it is equally important that we conduct research with the population we are teaching. Conducting research with deaf children is the only way we will be able to better understand how they learn to write and the extent to which their trajectory does or does not differ from their hearing age peers. Note This research was supported in part by a grant from the International Reading Association. The authors wish to thank Beverly Trezek for helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.

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Authors Cheri Williams is a professor in the Literacy and Second Language Studies program, School of Education, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45221; e-mail: cheri. [email protected]. She teaches graduate courses in emergent and early literacy as well as advanced seminars on theoretical and methodological frameworks for literacy research. She has published extensively on emergent and early literacy learning and instruction among children who are typically developing and those who are deaf. Her research appears in the leading journals in the fields of literacy and deaf education; she also has numerous national presentations. She has served on a number of editorial boards, including American Annals of the Deaf, The Volta Review, and Language and Education. She recently received the AERA SIG for Research on the Education of Deaf Person’s 2013 Best Paper Award for research on early writing among children who are deaf and hard of hearing. CONNIE MAYER is an associate professor in the Faculty of Education at York University in Toronto, Canada, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, ON Ontario M3J1P3, Canada; e-mail: [email protected]. She is an academic coordinator of the Teacher Preparation Program in the Education of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students, and works in the graduate programs in education, linguistics and applied linguistics, and critical disability studies. She is an associate editor for the Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, and a member of the editorial board of the American Annals of the Deaf and the Reading Research Quarterly. Her current research focuses on language and literacy development in deaf learners, early literacy and early intervention, cochlear implantation, bilingualism, and models of teacher education. She has presented widely on these topics both nationally and internationally as well as having written numerous journal articles and book chapters and having coauthored a book on early literacy development in deaf children that will be available in 2015. She recently received the AERA SIG for Research on the Education of Deaf Person’s 2013 Best Paper Award for research on early writing among children who are deaf and hard of hearing.
