The teachers also exposed students to structures in signs across content areas. Sign language provides cognitive and developmental benefits and those teachers with a degree in language are highly recommending adding sign language to early learning education. Thus, what might be beneficial is a term that can describe an alphabetic handshape as a basic sign language structure and signify the alphabetic connection that exists between handshapes and graphemes. C. Elisa, a teacher in the second-year preschool class, described in the following excerpt why they promoted an awareness of sign language structure: It’s like teaching the letter A, then making the connection to the sound /a/ and pointing out how it’s the same in other words. Although the body of research seems to contradict each other, one potential explanation is that deaf children can become successful readers through multiple pathways. In their findings, they concluded that although non-native signs do not share all standard phonological rules governing the formation of native signs, non-native signs also have their own standardized and regularized pattern and phonological structure of rules that are “constrained, systematic, and expressed within the grammar of ASL” (p. 117). Almost all the teachers described using a poster of ASL handshapes. Newell What are the learning goals in the curriculum? Supalla, Wix, and McKee (2001) also described an approach at ASL/English bilingual education program where they focused on teaching ASL phonological structures as a means to identify signed structure in signed illustrations and learn an ASL graphemic system as a bridge to help students acquire words in English. Interestingly, cross-linguistic activation studies have found evidence that there is some level of ASL-based phonological processing in reading (Morford, Wilkinson, Villwock, Piñar, & Kroll, 2011; Treiman & Hirsh-Pasek, 1983). For a hearing, speaking, teacher, this would be impossible to use at the same time when signing, just like speaking Spanish & English at the same time is impossible. ASL signs correspond to English print through non-alphabetic parameters. The most basic way that teachers exposed students to the manual alphabet was through direct instruction. A. Jennifer, one of the preschool teachers, shared a poignant example of one of her students who, a novice signer, began to express his understanding of different sign forms through play: Once I finished (my lesson) I was amazed by something a student did. The analysis of the data was conducted on the interviews with the 10 participants and on the follow-up response that was filled out by 6 of the 10 participants. The challenges that seem to limit the potential widespread use of ASL PA in deaf education exist, but these are partially a product educators and researchers still trying to understand how sign language can be developed as a primary language and used as a means to promote literacy. The analysis was performed according to the constant comparative method (Charmaz, 2001; Strauss & Corbin, 1990). Like all natural languages, signs native to ASL follow a distinct set of rules that dictate how the signs are formed (for review, see Brentari & Padden, 2001). Siedlecki The instructional strategies theme described the approaches that teachers used to build ASL and English literacy skills. E. W. The difference in the number of elemental units is not necessarily problematic in terms of describing the phonological structure of the conversational language, as these forms represent the different ways that ASL and English are structured and represent lexical items. Rashotte As Jennifer stated, “You feel confident when you write. Historically, the origin of manual alphabet can be traced back to Spain, where initially it was used to represent spoken Spanish in the 1500s and 1600s. This excerpt reveals several important connections between fingerspelling and language and literacy development. The National is the top-selling newspaper in Papua New Guinea. The teachers stressed that exposing children to regular and lexicalized fingerspelling was crucial to their students’ language and literacy development. Trezek This category details the instances in which teachers promoted knowledge of the manual alphabet with their students. American Sign Language (ASL) is the most recognized form of sign language in the world. BSL is a complete language with a unique vocabulary, construction and grammar. What do you do to bridge ASL to English text? He signed COW (the sign was a close approximation of COW with using the 1-HS on the location of cow, instead of the proper Y-HS), and I signed to the student YES. The connecting to English print Subcategory described how teachers sought to establish a relationship between ASL and English to develop literacy skills, and this Subcategory was divided into two approaches, promote emergent literacy and promote word decoding (see Figure 2). The ASL specialist reported she regularly used collaborative guided reading with some students. The findings of this study reveal that teachers did promote sign language PA with students, but there is still much more that needs to be done. jQuery('#shs_slider_ul:not(:animated)').animate({'left' : '-300px'},1000,function(){}); However, it is not clear if this was isolated incident in one school, or if there is more widespread use of sign language PA than previously thought. You shouldn’t do that because you think they can’t fingerspell. How do you build metalinguistic awareness of ASL and English? Supalla What You'll Learn in American Sign Language Lessons. Learning Is a Challenge for You . All the teachers’ instructional beliefs were grounded in an additive bilingual philosophy. Why would you decide to take that from them, and decide you think you know best and give them a sign instead? A. R. When paired together, students had the means to utilize an efficient and effective means to transfer semantic information from ASL to written English that would not be possible with either sign or fingerspelling forms alone (see Figure 3). Lisa stated that AEBPD training helped her understand that, although ASL was important part of student’s development, early and consistent exposure to English was equally important for the students’ development. The C is in the English word for cat, but it’s also in the sign POLICE or DRINK (in ASL). Mayberry Cathy, the other teacher who taught in the second-year preschool class, described handshape awareness as “sort of like a ‘pre-guide’ to an advanced understanding.” Her comment reflected a common belief among the teachers that students needed to understand the basic uses of handshapes before they could develop a more sophisticated understanding of the ways that handshapes could be used within in ASL. However, fingerspelling provides a manually based alphabetic correspondence to graphemes in written English. A focus of many early childhood educators in the United States is to help children develop a deeper understanding of spoken English and develop literacy skills. A. It’s like his eyes were opened, and his mind was just receptive to the possibilities, and he just made lots of connections (between signs and print). S. They’re more physical and benefit from the manual fingerspelling movements—the feel of it. Part of this practice reflected the project approach used in the school, where the teachers followed the students’ lead and developed lesson plans that focused on a theme for a short period of time (Edwards, Gandini, & Forman, 1998; Katz & Chard, 2000). This study used a qualitative approach to examine teacher beliefs and practices of ASL PA in deaf education from teacher self-reports. T. The teachers reported that students in their classes often struggled to make the distinction. Similarly, both teachers in the second-year preschool class also reported using a Handshape tracing activity for language play. Little is known about how teachers might promote ASL PA in deaf education or how its use may parallel and contrast with PA used with hearing children. A teacher’s score of 4 indicated that she used a strategy daily, whereas a score of 0 meant she never used the strategy. For many adults who are second language learners of ASL, they often struggle with fingerspelling; it requires fine motor physical development of fingers that are one of the most distal structures from the body. What is striking about children’s early use of fingerspelling is how they perceive its representational form. Trezek What does all of this mean for teachers who work in deaf education and promote early literacy and language development? Another underlying belief that served as a basis for the teachers’ instruction was a focus on the progressive development of their students’ knowledge of sign language structure. Wix How do you incorporate reading activities? What is revealing about the instructional strategies is that the teachers used these strategies to help native signers convert their implicit awareness into an explicit awareness. For example, one teacher developed a handshape story that used handshapes that were taught in class (A, B, S, C, O, 1, 5, and F-HS). What are theories in which you base your teaching practices? It is noteworthy to mention that many teachers at the school received training from the Center for ASL/English Bilingual Education and Research (CAEBER). It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide, This PDF is available to Subscribers Only. jQuery('#shs_slider_ul:not(:animated)').animate({'left' : left_indent},1000, However, does this mean that non-native signs are not part of ASL phonology because they “violate” the rules that govern the formation of native signs? . The manual alphabet has been difficult to characterize as a phonological structure because it is a hybrid between ASL and written English. Individual phonemes in spoken English map onto corresponding graphemes in written English, providing an alphabetic correspondence that forms the basis of the alphabetic principle, which many educators and researchers consider to be an important realization for children in early stages of literacy development (Foorman & Torgesen, 2001). Learning a sign language has never been so easier with rapid development of the web, quality materials and training is much more convenient and affordable. Deaf and hearing teachers can work together to discuss these subtle differences and use current practices and beliefs to develop a comparable approach that can be tailored to fit deaf children’s need to process information visually, such as how teachers in this study used a sign language–based approach to promote PA with their students. Seven participants were deaf (six teachers and the ASL specialist) and three participants were hearing. 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