Special Literacy Issue

This process is seen as the single most influential factor in a child's literacy development. Read and sign books at the students' age-level to improve visual skills, build vocabulary, aid reading comprehension, and have a positive impact on students' attitude toward reading.

This is a written dialogue between a student and an adult that transpires daily. The adult does not correct the grammar, punctuation, and spelling, but demonstrates the use of correct English by writing back to the student.

Adults and students read a book repeatedly, helping students develop confidence in their ability to read. Students re-read the story, act it out, and make a new version of the book.

Students draft, share, edit, and publish writing. Adults give daily mini-lessons on writing style, grammar, punctuation, and spelling. Students and adults work on ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, and conventions.

Students read independently from a wide selection of fiction and nonfiction materials from school, classrooms, and public libraries. Adults give mini-lessons, and have individual or small group discussions to ask open-ended questions to enable students to generate interesting and insightful responses for later entry in their journals.

Students respond to text in open-ended and personal ways at their instructional level. Work on developing fluency and confidence with reading strategies, and develop insights into theme, style, divergent opinion, and various forms of literature.

Students write logs or journals to record, explore, and reflect on personal response to science, math, social studies, deaf culture, or other academic area. The adult reads and responds to the journals regularly. Both the student and adult monitor individual development and progress.

Students work on a project over several days. Students dictate a story or experience and the adult translates the student's expression into written English. The adult uses that text for reading instruction.

Project-related writing demonstrates comprehension of nonfiction books. Students work as in individuals or in groups. They may use K-W-L (Know-Want-to-Know-Learn) process to identify concepts that need to be investigated, and report using the writing process.

Pre-College National Mission Programs (Clerc Center) is launching two major new training initiatives as part of its national mission to improve the literacy skills of deaf and hard of hearing children.

Literacy is one of the three priority areas targeted by Pre-College National Mission Programs (Clerc Center) for intensive examination and focus. Much attention has been paid to innovative projects like the Shared Reading Project and the products related to literacy that have been developed at Clerc Center. But sometimes overlooked are the critical roles played by Clerc Center speech/language pathologists (SLPs) and audiologists in meeting the varied needs of deaf and hard of hearing students related to literacy development.

The authors in this special issue, selected their favorite reading material for individuals that are establishing full literacy programs in their classrooms and schools.

The Web offers a wealth of resources for individuals seeking information about literacy. The following Web sites are highly recommended by Barbara Leutke-Stahlman, PhD, director of Deaf Education in the School of Allied Health, and Diane Nielsen, reading professor in the Department of Learning and Teaching in the College of Education, at the University of Kansas Medical Center, in Kansas City, Kansas.