A New Reason for Why the Deaf May Have Trouble Reading
30 июля 2013

A New Reason for Why the Deaf May Have Trouble Reading

A New Reason for Why the Deaf May Have Trouble Reading
This is the VOA Special English Health Report, from voaspecialenglish.com | facebook.com/voalearningenglish Deaf people may have no trouble communicating words through American Sign Language, or ASL. But studies of ASL users show that the average deaf high school student reads at the level of a nine-year-old.The explanation has always been that this is because they never learned to connect letters with sounds. But a recent study shows that deaf readers are just like other people learning to read in a second language. Linguist Jill Morford led the study. She says: "The assumption has always been that the problems with reading were educational issues with what's the right way to teach reading when you can't associate sounds with letters. But what we're finding is that all this time we've been ignoring the fact that they're actually learning a new language." Ms. Morford is a professor at the University of New Mexico and part of a research center at Gallaudet University in Washington. Most students at Gallaudet are deaf; the center studies how deaf people learn and use language.Professor Morford says signers are like English learners whose first language uses a different alphabet. She says: "Anyone who has a first language that has a written system that's very different than English, like Arabic or Chinese or Russian, knows that learning to recognize and understand words in English is much more challenging than if you already speak a language that uses the same orthography."The orthography is the written system and spelling of a language. Of course, with signers, their first language has no written system at all, just hand gestures. Gallaudet professor Tom Allen explains what effect this has on reading. He says: "There's a silent hearing going on ... when a hearing person reads a word. When a deaf person reads a word, there's not. They see the word and there's some kind of an orthographic representation. And some of the research in our center has shown that when deaf readers read an English word, it activates their sign representations of those words." Signers can face the same problems as other bilingual people. Their brains have to choose between two languages all the time. Take the words "paper" and "movie." Their spelling and meaning are not at all similar. But, as Professor Allen points out, the signs for them are. To make the sign for paper," he says, "you hold one hand flat and you just lightly tap it with a flat palm on the other hand, and you do that a couple times and that means paper." Movie is very similar, except the other hand "lightly moves back and forth as if it were a flickering image on a screen." The study appears in the journal Cognition. For VOA Special English, I'm Alex Villareal. You can learn more about the world everyday and learn English at the same time at voaspecialenglish.com. You can also connect with us on Facebook and Twitter at VOA Learning English. (Adapted from a radio program broadcast 13April2011)
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#1 написал: Billy Hornet (1 августа 2013 13:16)
Why would you want to teach a deaf person the improper way of reading, being that they sound out each syllable in their head (subvocalization). Deaf people have a natural ability to read faster than average people because their brain recognizes the meaning of the word and not how it sounds.? So while their brain can process over 1000 words per minute, the video prompts for them to read in the slower normal way.
#2 написал: Ray77063 (1 августа 2013 13:16)
The solution seems obvious. Flashcards of written words combined with fingerspelling. Later, fingerspell a paragraph as it is read. The manual alphabet of ASL has the same letters? (minus the capital, ,bold, italics, and underline characteristics) as the written alphabet. We teach our hearing children to spell a word by repeatedly requesting a verbal spelling ("D-O-G"). We can ask our deaf children to fingerspell the signs for "dog", "couch", "afternoon", etc.
#3 написал: banderaslee (1 августа 2013 13:16)
It is all true as well as they (VOA) said that a complete.For instance, A deaf has two languages movie (or picture) and? word (paper) in...to a brain will be worse, turn writing so bad and danger. The ASL often used movie a lots than words is called limit. All deaf have trouble reading this, as well as they are the only ability to understand reading a book -9 years-old. Disgrace or not? Please looking this matter an issue on solve!!!See More
#4 написал: TheConstantSeeker (1 августа 2013 13:16)
That may be true for some, but not for all. I know many deaf students who spent NO time learning speech/lipreading and they are still behind. So while that might be part of the reason, I don't think it's the main reason. Either way, yes, the system needs? to be revamped.
#5 написал: VOA Learning English (1 августа 2013 13:16)
The caption incorrectly says the average deaf "adult" reads at the level of a nine-year-old. It should say "high school student.," as read, based on? research among high school seniors.
#6 написал: PinkPUFFify (1 августа 2013 13:16)
She said "Average of Deaf? High school student reads at average of nine year old" but the caption said "average deaf adult", get the caption right.
#7 написал: Jonathan Ramos (1 августа 2013 13:16)
I? don't think so. I dislike it.
#8 написал: wolfepack9214 (1 августа 2013 13:16)
wow!!! look here!!! it says asl and reading is like learning a 2nd language which if u go back to my comment abt ASL and SPANISH!! and umm its not just hand gestures!! do u know that i was able to READ at 3!! because of SIGN LANGUAGE!! i had? to spell and do my alphabet at a very young age... comapre spanish and asl....
#9 написал: ridor9th (1 августа 2013 13:16)
This is bullshit, actually. These Deaf students lagged in reading & writing mianly because they were forced to focus on speech & lipreading excessively rather than to focus on ASL &? English throughout their elementary, middle & high school. Hence, Deaf children fell behind and continues to lag behind ... it is time for these hearie fools to back off and allow Deaf educators revamp the system of deaf education! R-