Reading and Reflecting on Text
- 1. READING AND REFLECTING ON TEXT Submitted by Uvashree S.V. 19USDH014 II B.Ed. Special Education (HI) And Mathematics
- 2. BASIC UNDERSTANDING OF READING COMPREHENSION OF CHILDREN WITH HEARING IMAPAIRMENT
- 3. READING COMPREHENSION Comprehension is the understanding and interpretation of what is read. To be able to accurately understand written material, children need to be able to: 1) Decode what they read 2) Make connections between what they read and what they already know 3) Think deeply about what they have read.
- 4. READING COMPREHENSION FOR HEARING IMPAIRED Students who are deaf or hard of hearing often struggle to develop or improve crucial literacy skills. One of the most difficult skills for them to master is reading comprehension. The study found that 25% of the participants who had reading difficulties showed mild to moderate hearing loss.
- 5. For a hearing impaired learner, the difficulty in comprehending a text is because of missing out on significant auditory information. Also, in formal education more than often comprehension of text is compromised for time restrains and the impact of this trend of hearing impaired learner effects far more gravely as they are not only fail to learn the process but now have to adjust with artificial inactive learning.
- 6. According to Estabrooks and Estes (2007) identified four components of text comprehension as 1. The ability to rapidly decode and attach meaning to new words, 2. The syntactic and morphologic competence to gain collective meaning from the decoded words, 3. The ability to hold the meaning in working memory while processing new words and 4. The ability to apply text processing strategies for the purpose of figuring out unfamiliar words and passages.
- 7. FACTORS AFFECTING READING COMPREHENSION Vocabulary and Phonology have always been sources of difficulty for students who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing. In regards to their reading comprehension abilities, vocabulary and phonology tend to be two areas that contribute to the lack of comprehension when students who are deaf or hard of hearing are reading.
- 8. An additional challenge for deaf or hard of hearing students is the way they learn vocabulary. Students who are deaf or hard of hearing tend to learn their words visually (through perception), it makes the task of acquiring vocabulary extremely difficult for them. Abstract, multi-meaning words, and figurative language are especially difficult for students who are deaf or hard of hearing to understand.
- 9. The lack of vocabulary is considered by many educators to be at least a portion of the problem when it comes to the comprehension of sentences or passages read by students who are deaf or hard of hearing. Students who are deaf and hard of hearing struggle is the syntax of the English language. Syntactic knowledge reflects an understanding of how the meaning of single words is specified by their temporal structuring within a sentence.
- 10. STRATEGIES TO DEVELOP READING COMPREHENSION Research encourages conversations with peers before, during and after read time as well as routine conversations with teachers, peers, and parents help children with hearing impaired develop their background knowledge of the language.
- 11. The following strategies help the teachers and parents of hearing impaired to develop reading comprehension. Learn to Sign: Parents/Teachers need to be able to teach their children how to communicate. Learning to sign is very important because children need constant exposure to the language they are learning.
- 12. Focus on visuals: Picture books are great for helping a deaf child learn to read. Sign-spell the word and the accompanying picture, and then use the sign for the word. If we teach the child to read lips, have the child point the picture, point to the word and then watch the mouth slowly and deliberately speak the word.
- 13. Use letter cards: Another way to help children develop language and reading skills is to use letter cards. Letter cards can be used to demonstrate how individual letters forms words. We could aim to teach the child a new combination everyday.
- 14. Build vocabulary: Introduce new word everyday to the hearing impaired child who develop their language.
- 15. Adjust environment: Deaf learners need a visual environment to thrive. A helpful activity that might be to help child to label items around the room that has the written word on it. If we are doing activities with the child, incorporate a lot of visual aids.
- 16. Comprehension testing: Make sure that children understand what they are reading by pointing to a picture or a printed word and having them give the sign back to us.