Developing Language And (Pre)literacy Skills In Deaf Preschoolers Through Shared Reading Activities With Bimodal-Bilingual eBooks

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2018

Published In

Journal Of Multilingual Education Research

Abstract

Encouraging relaxed and playful interaction over stories naturally fosters language interaction and both preliteracy [hereafter (pre)literacy skills] and literacy without anxiety. Reading for pleasure is valuable for young hearing children – we know that, it is among the most beloved family rituals. In this article we argue that reading for pleasure needs to be recognized as valuable for young deaf children and needs to become a beloved family ritual for them, as well. One way to achieve this is to read ebooks to deaf children in order to advance their communication and other (pre)literacy skills. An exploration of these types of books showed that bilingual-bimodal ebooks are being produced to promote literacy through explicit pedagogical techniques, so adults have to learn specific methods to share the books with the children. As an alternative, we describe the Reading Involves Shared Experience (RISE) project, which produces bimodal-bilingual ebooks. Our analysis discusses how using this approach can advance a range of (pre)literacy skills through playful shared reading with deaf children.

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