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From:
Roving Reporter Date: Thu Sep 17, 1998 1:43 am Subject: Re: SW-L Digest - 15 Sep 1998 to 16 Sep 1998 | ||||||||
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Judy Kegl writes: >Subject: Re: SW for Second Graders >My recommendation is to teach Deaf children to read and write SW as you >would teach hearing children to read and write English. The whole point >of using SW is to put Deaf kids at a par with their hearing peers when it >comes to learning literacy in their native language. SW potentially >succeeds at this because it is "visually phonetic" and therefore children >have a fighting chance at decoding the system. > >Now, how do we teach hearing second graders to read? First of all, >hopefully, we have been reading to them all along, so they have a pretty >good idea what a story is. Children do not start by learning the alphabet >or by reading super basic beginner books. Rather, parents and later >teachers read stories to them -- and by second grade, some of these >stories are pretty sophisticated. Certainly, the grammar is highly >sophisticated. The kids themselves first start to read and to write on a >minimalist level. BUT WE HAVE BEEN READING TO THEM ON A COMPLEX LEVEL ALL >ALONG. So, why teach Deaf kids any differently? The answer, >realistically, is that at this juncture in the development of SW >literature, there just ain't much stuff -- really nothing that I have seen >in ASL SW that amounts to a real story (maybe "Cinderella" comes a little >close.) This is one reason there remains so much resistance to SW. >Actually, there are lots of reasons for resistance to SW, but this is the >only legitimate one. > >So, a team needs to be assembled to get cracking on rectifying this >situation. More correctly, a good number of teams are needed. Anyway, I >think each team should consist of: 1) a fluent reader of English >(probably a hearing person); 2) a fluent ASL signer (preferably a native >signer) and >3) someone adept in SW. Why do I think a hearing person is necessary? >Well, and I mean no offense, but putting spoken thoughts to pen is inherent to hearing culture. You can be a fantastic storyteller in spoken >English, but writing it takes experience. For hearing people, this is >much of what their education has been about. On the other hand, a Deaf >ASL storyteller does not have the experience of putting the ASL story from >hand to ink -- where would he or she get that experience anyway? (We >learn by doing, under the auspices of those who have done.) I'm hard of hearing, not deaf. I feel that hard of hearing signers have just as much right if not more to volunteer to be part of the team who "puts thoughts to pen." I'm a writer in English. If there is a team in the Los Angeles area that wants to start writing stories, I would be willing to help, if the logistics can be arranged. English is my first language, and I'm a writer by trade. ---------------------------------------------------------- * Therese Shellabarger - * * https://www.concentric.net/~tlshell/ Shalom chaverot! * ------------------------------------------------ * See Deaf Expo at https://www.deafexpo.org/ * ---------------------------------------------------------- Unless explicitly stated to the contrary, nothing here should be regarded as representing my employer's opinions. | ||||||||
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