Reading-Aloud: Hearing Impaired Children

When educating children who are deaf and hard of hearing, there are a plethora of practices and teaching strategies available to educators. While some of these practices are based primarily on anecdotal evidence, others, such as the practice of Reading-aloud, have a fairly strong research base to work with. Although reading a story aloud to children seems like a fairly simple task, it is actually an incredibly important tool for teaching learners who are deaf and hard of hearing. Literacy continues to be a lifetime struggle for many hearing impaired children and adults. Unfortunately, a majority of high school graduates who are deaf and hard of hearing consistently leave school at or below a fourth grade reading level (Traxler, 2000). This …show more content…
Depending on the child’s mode of communication, they would do this either orally or through sign (Bilson, 1996). The books chosen by the educator for read-alouds are typically more challenging than those that the student would be able to read on their own. This helps to introduce new concepts as well as new vocabulary. While this means that the text is above their independent reading level, it should still remain at their listening level (Beltchenko, 2011). This ensures that the child can comprehend the story while still being academically challenged by the …show more content…
Although most of the studies have been conducted on hearing children, many of these benefits can be applied to those with a hearing loss as well. Reading-aloud has consistently shown through research to benefit children of all abilities. One of the most significant areas that deaf and hard of hearing children struggle with when it comes to literacy is having a sufficient vocabulary (Luetke-Stahlman, 1999). This is because they are simply not exposed to much beyond what they are directly taught. As Moog (2003) points out, “the level of a child’s vocabulary is an important factor for developing competence in reading” (p. 40). Thus, vocabulary is extremely important to develop in order for a child to be academically successful. Read-alouds have proven to be a great way to increase the vocabulary of all learners. In one particular study conducted by Wood and Salvetti (2001), Kindergartners that were considered linguistically “at risk” who were read-aloud to for two years gained twice as many vocabulary words as the children who were not read-aloud to. These children also showed to have higher fluency and comprehension rates. Because deaf and hard of hearing children are also considered to be “at risk” for developing language, it makes sense that their development