Running head: LITERATURE REVIEW AND RESEARCH PROPOSAL 1

Literature Review and Research Proposal

Alison Roberts

Longwood University
LITERATURE REVIEW AND RESEARCH PROPOSAL 2

Literature Review and Research Proposal

How to teach students who are deaf and hard of hearing to read has been in the

background of literacy research for far too long. Students who are deaf and hard of hearing

(DHH) typically lag behind their grade-level peers in reading. Achievement testing shows that,

by the time DHH students are exiting high school, they only demonstrate reading comprehension

of an average fourth grade student (Qi & Mitchell, 2012, p. 6). This trend is not just in the past.

A comparison of DHH students’ scores from 1974 to 2003 show continual averages between

third and fourth grade equivalent scores for eighteen year olds (Qi & Mitchell, 2012, p. 6).

Section I

In 1997, Congress asked for a panel to be formed to examine the research in literacy

methodology. The National Reading Panel was formed and found what are considered to be the

most important considerations in reading: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency,

comprehension, and vocabulary (2000, p. 1-2). Today, these factors are still considered to be the

gold standard as for what needs to be included in a balanced literacy approach.

During their research, the National Reading Panel established “phonemic awareness and

letter knowledge as the two best school-entry predictors of how well children will learn to read

during the first 2 years of instruction” (2000, p. 2-9). While it may seem counterintuitive for

phonemic awareness, the ability to hear and manipulate the smallest unit of sounds, to be

important in the reading skills of students who are often unable to clearly hear sounds, research

indicates that it is crucial for reading development.

Studies have shown that the same correlation between phonemic awareness and reading

success is true are for DHH students (Woolsey, Satterfield, & Roberson, 2006, p. 455). A study

of reading ability in deaf students by Dyer, MacSweeney, Szczerbinski, Green, and Campbell
LITERATURE REVIEW AND RESEARCH PROPOSAL 3

found that “the best correlates of reading in these students were tasks related to phonemic

awareness and decoding (PAD), and reading delay was negatively related to these skills” (2003,

p. 225). Another study has proven that DHH students who do better with rhyming tasks in

kindergarten will do better on word recognition in first grade (Colin, Magnan, Ecalie, &

Leybaert, 2007).

In 2008, Wang, Trezek, Luckner, and Paul set out to find the role that phonological

processes, such as phonemic awareness, play in reading for DHH students and how reading was

different for hearing and DHH students. They found that the same five elements the National

Reading Panel identified as being instrumental for hearing students are still fundamental for

DHH students. Their important distinction is that “how these fundamentals are delivered via

instruction should vary because of the individual differences in children” (Wang et al., 2008, p.

398). Just as a teacher might differentiate lessons based on levels of knowledge or learning

styles, these fundamental skills can have their delivery modified to be made accessible for all

students.

Learning to read has aspects that are the same and that are different for DHH and hearing

students. A pivotal similarity is that children learning to read, whether they are hearing or DHH,

will “follow the same sequence of skill development” when learning to read (Wang et al., 2008,

p. 398). However, it used to be thought that DHH children were incapable of learning

phonological skills. Because of this belief, a whole language approach was often used with DHH

students, and “phonemic awareness and phonics were not required to be taught” before No Child

Left Behind was enacted (Narr & Cawthon, 2010, p. 72). “Lack of attention to teaching critical

beginning reading skills such as phonemic awareness and phonics may contribute to the reading

difficulties experienced by students who are deaf or hard of hearing” (Wang et al., 2008, p. 398).
LITERATURE REVIEW AND RESEARCH PROPOSAL 4

After No Child Left Behind was implemented, all students needed to receive phonics and

phonemic awareness instruction, including DHH students (Narr & Cawthon, 2010, p. 72).

Research has revealed that DHH student can learn phonemic awareness and phonics when

instruction is appropriately modified, making it possible to implement the required instruction.

The issue then became that teachers needed a way for DHH students to wield phonological

knowledge when they cannot hear any phonemes or have limited hearing. See the Sound: Visual

Phonics (Visual Phonics) is a system that can make phonemes accessible for DHH students.

Visual Phonics is a system of hand cues and written symbols that each correspond to a phoneme.

Visual Phonics is not an explicit phonics program; it provides hand cues and written symbols to

be used in conjunction with a class’s reading and phonics programs as an aid (International

Communication Learning Institute, 2011). Since the early 1980’s, teachers have been attending

workshops by the International Communications Learning Institute to learn Visual Phonics.

While this system was developed with DHH students in mind, it has also been used to help

students with other disabilities and struggling readers. In 2009, 200 teachers trained in Visual

Phonics took a survey about how they use the hand cues and written symbols in their classrooms

and what results they saw (Narr & Cawthon, 2010, p. 72). Teachers cited an improvement in

decoding abilities for DHH students (Narr & Cawthon, 2010, p. 72).

Visual Phonics has been combined with various reading and phonics programs over the

years. Through the use of this combination, researchers have found an improvement in

phonological awareness, phonics, and overall reading ability. In 2011, six students were tutored

to supplement classroom instruction using Visual Phonics and Teach Your Child to Read in 100

Easy Lessons, a literacy program. All six of the students made gains in pseudoword decoding

after ten weeks of tutoring (Guardino, Syverud, Joyner, Nicols, & King, 2011). This suggests
LITERATURE REVIEW AND RESEARCH PROPOSAL 5

that the students could take what they had learned in tutoring when looking at real words and

apply the phonics knowledge to pseudowords. While the sample size and limiting factors of this

study warrant further research, this does suggest that using Visual Phonics combined with a

reading program can improve phonics knowledge.

Trezek and Wang studied the implications of using Visual Phonics in combination with

Reading Mastery I over an eight month period (2006). Thirteen students ranging from

kindergarten to first grade were studied. All students made significant gains over the course of

the study. Pseudowords decoding, and reading comprehension tests were administered for the

nine first grade students. All of the students made gains in pseudoword decoding, and all but one

student made gains in reading comprehension. In terms of how much progress the students made,

students averaged a gain of four months in word reading and a gain of nine months in

pseudoword decoding (Trezek & Wang, 2006). Given the very gradual reading gains typically

seen in DHH students, this amount of progress is noteworthy.

A similar study was conducted using Visual Phonics and LACES, a school district’s

literacy curriculum, with kindergarten and first grade students over the course of a school year

(Trezek, Wang, Woods, Gampp, & Paul, 2007). Kindergarten students were assessed on how

well they represented sounds in words, how accurate their spelling was, and how well they could

segment phonemes. First grade students were assessed on all the same measures as the

kindergarten students in addition to tests for phoneme deletion, onsets, and rimes. While there

are limits to this research, the conclusions “indicate that given 1 year of instruction from a

phonics-based reading curriculum supplemented by Visual Phonics, kindergarten and first-grade

students who are deaf or hard of hearing can demonstrate improvements in beginning readings

skills” (Trezek et al., 2007, p. 383). The results of these studies indicate that using Visual
LITERATURE REVIEW AND RESEARCH PROPOSAL 6

Phonics and a strong reading curriculum can result in gains in literacy activities for DHH

students.

When No Child Left Behind was implemented, the call for research based programs left

many schools looking towards the National Reading Panel for guidance (Trezek et al., 2007, p.

373). For teachers of the deaf and hard of hearing, this meant finding a way for all students to

access phonics and phonemic awareness. The push for research based programs meant research

to support programs like Visual Phonics was needed quickly. Several studies have looked at

using Visual Phonics as part of a literacy curriculum to teach DHH students and have found

promising results (Guardino et al., 2011; Narr, 2008; Narr & Cawthon, 2010; Trezek & Wang,

2006; Trezek et al., 2007). All of these studies show that Visual Phonics can impact literacy

skills. What these studies fail to look at is the long term impact. With the need for research so

immediate, the longest period of observation for any of these studies was a school year. There

has been a ceiling of a fourth grade reading level for eighteen year old DHH students for over

forty years. These studies do not shown how changing the teaching methods will impact reading

in the long term.

Section II

Students need to be studied over longer period of time than previous researchers have

done to find out if Visual Phonics may be the key to teaching reading for DHH students. A

longitudinal study needs to be conducted. A group of deaf and hard of hearing students, who all

attend schools in the same county and enter kindergarten at the same time, will be followed from

kindergarten until they graduate high school. Teachers will use Visual Phonics to supplement the

county’s selected literacy program. Visual Phonics will be used with phonics instruction and

during any activity that involves phonological awareness. Just as hearing students need explicit
LITERATURE REVIEW AND RESEARCH PROPOSAL 7

phonics instruction less and less as they age, the same is predicted to be true of DHH students,

supported by the lesser usage of Visual Phonics for upper elementary students in Gaurdino et

al.’s study (2011, p. 566). Once students have reached this point of mastery, Visual Phonics will

only be used to clarify phonemes as needed. The amount of Visual Phonics used over time will

be monitored and reported to find trends.

Students in early elementary school will be tested more frequently, as this is the time

where students typically make the most drastic growth. Students in kindergarten through third

grade will be assessed at the beginning, middle, and end of each school year. Students in fourth

grade through twelfth grade will be assessed at the beginning and end of each school year.

Students will be assessed on phonological awareness and phonemic awareness until mastery has

been achieved. In addition, a reading level assessment will also be administered.

Along with the DHH students, the same number of hearing students will be selected to

participate in the study. These students will attend public schools in the same county and enter

kindergarten in the same year as the DHH students. The hearing students selected will be

students whose native language is English, have no documented learning disability, have no

hearing impairments, and are performing at an average level when entering kindergarten. They

will take the same assessments as the DHH students over the course of their school career.

The data from the DHH and hearing students will be collected. The quantitative data will

show how the DHH students performed in comparison to the hearing students, as well as how

high their reading levels get. Educators have failed to effectively teach reading to DHH students

for decades; the average reading level of a DHH high school graduate is fourth grade (Qi &

Mitchell, 2012, p. 6). If deaf and hard of hearing students are taught using Visual Phonics and an
LITERATURE REVIEW AND RESEARCH PROPOSAL 8

explicit, research based reading curriculum throughout their education, what is the impact on

their reading level?

LITERATURE REVIEW AND RESEARCH PROPOSAL 9

References

Colin, S., Magnan, A., Ecalie, J., & Leybaert, J. (2007). Relation between deaf children’s

phonological skills in kindergarten and word recognition performance in first grade.

Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry, 48(2), 139-146.

Dyer, A., MacSweeney, M., Szczerbinski, M., Green, L., & Campbell, R. (2003). Predictors of

reading delay in deaf adolescents: The relative contributions of rapid automatized

naming speed and phonological awareness and decoding. Journal of Deaf Studies and

Deaf Education, 8(3), 215-229.

Guardino, C., Syverud, S. M., Joyner, A., Nicols, H., & King, S. (2011). Further evidence of the

effectiveness of phonological instruction with oral-deaf readers. American Annals of the

Deaf, 155(5), 562-568.

International Communication Learning Institute. (2011). International Communication Learning

Institute. Retrieved from http://seethesound.org/

Narr, R. F. (2008). Phonological awareness and decoding in deaf/hard-of-hearing students who

use visual phonics. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 13(3), 405-416.

doi:10.1093/deafed/enm064

Narr, R. F., & Cawthon, S. W. (2010). The “Wh” questions of visual phonics: What, who, where,

when, and why. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 16(1), 66-78.

doi:10.1093/deafed/enq038

National Reading Panel. (2000). Report of the national reading panel: Teaching children to

read : An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and

its implications for reading instruction (NIH Pub. No. 00-4769). Retrieved from

https://www.nichd.nih.gov/publications/pubs/nrp/Documents/report.pdf
LITERATURE REVIEW AND RESEARCH PROPOSAL 10

Qi, S., & Mitchell, R. R. (2012). Large-scale academic achievement testing of deaf and hard-of-

hearing students: Past, present, and future. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf

Education, 17(1), 1-18. doi:10.1093/deafed/enr028

Trezek, B., & Wang, Y. (2006). Implications of utilizing a phonics-based reading curriculum

with children who are deaf or hard of hearing. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf

Education, 11(2), 202-213. doi:10.1093/deafed/enj031

Trezek, B. J., Wang, Y., Woods, D. G., Gampp, T. L., & Paul, P. V. (2007). Using visual

phonics to supplement beginning reading instruction for students who are deaf or hard of

hearing. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 12(3), 373-384.

doi:10.1093/deafed/enm014

Wang, Y., Trezek, B., Luckner, J., & Paul, P. (2008). The role of phonology and phonologically

related skills in reading instruction for students who are deaf or hard of

hearing. American Annals of the Deaf, 153(4), 396-407.

Woolsey, M. L., Satterfield, S. T., & Roberson, L. (2006). Visual phonics: An English code

buster? American Annals of the Deaf, 151(4), 452-7.