Predictors of Word and Text Reading Fluency of Deaf Children in Bilingual Deaf Education Programmes
Reading continues to be a challenging task for most deaf children. Bimodal bilingual education creates a supportive environment that stimulates deaf children’s learning through the use of sign language. However, it is still unclear how exposure to sign language might contribute to improving reading...
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| Format: | Article |
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MDPI AG
2022-02-01
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2226-471X/7/1/51 |
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| author | Ellen Ormel Marcel R. Giezen Harry Knoors Ludo Verhoeven Eva Gutierrez-Sigut |
| author_facet | Ellen Ormel Marcel R. Giezen Harry Knoors Ludo Verhoeven Eva Gutierrez-Sigut |
| author_sort | Ellen Ormel |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Reading continues to be a challenging task for most deaf children. Bimodal bilingual education creates a supportive environment that stimulates deaf children’s learning through the use of sign language. However, it is still unclear how exposure to sign language might contribute to improving reading ability. Here, we investigate the relative contribution of several cognitive and linguistic variables to the development of word and text reading fluency in deaf children in bimodal bilingual education programmes. The participants of this study were 62 school-aged (8 to 10 years old at the start of the 3-year study) deaf children who took part in bilingual education (using Dutch and Sign Language of The Netherlands) and 40 age-matched hearing children. We assessed vocabulary knowledge in speech and sign, phonological awareness in speech and sign, receptive fingerspelling ability, and short-term memory at time 1 (T1). At times 2 (T2) and 3 (T3), we assessed word and text reading fluency. We found that (1) speech-based vocabulary strongly predicted word and text reading at T2 and T3, (2) fingerspelling ability was a strong predictor of word and text reading fluency at T2 and T3, (3) speech-based phonological awareness predicted word reading accuracy at T2 and T3 but did not predict text reading fluency, and (4) fingerspelling and STM predicted word reading latency at T2 while sign-based phonological awareness predicted this outcome measure at T3. These results suggest that fingerspelling may have an important function in facilitating the construction of orthographical/phonological representations of printed words for deaf children and strengthening word decoding and recognition abilities. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-09T13:34:56Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-4a36a3388949431e8948d8c6639df38d |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2226-471X |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-09T13:34:56Z |
| publishDate | 2022-02-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Languages |
| spelling | doaj.art-4a36a3388949431e8948d8c6639df38d2023-11-30T21:12:48ZengMDPI AGLanguages2226-471X2022-02-01715110.3390/languages7010051Predictors of Word and Text Reading Fluency of Deaf Children in Bilingual Deaf Education ProgrammesEllen Ormel0Marcel R. Giezen1Harry Knoors2Ludo Verhoeven3Eva Gutierrez-Sigut4Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University, 6525 XZ Nijmegen, The NetherlandsBasque Centre on Cognition Brain and Language, 20009 Donostia, SpainBehavioural Science Institute, Radboud University, 6525 XZ Nijmegen, The NetherlandsBehavioural Science Institute, Radboud University, 6525 XZ Nijmegen, The NetherlandsDepartment of Psychology, University of Essex, Colchester CO4 3SQ, UKReading continues to be a challenging task for most deaf children. Bimodal bilingual education creates a supportive environment that stimulates deaf children’s learning through the use of sign language. However, it is still unclear how exposure to sign language might contribute to improving reading ability. Here, we investigate the relative contribution of several cognitive and linguistic variables to the development of word and text reading fluency in deaf children in bimodal bilingual education programmes. The participants of this study were 62 school-aged (8 to 10 years old at the start of the 3-year study) deaf children who took part in bilingual education (using Dutch and Sign Language of The Netherlands) and 40 age-matched hearing children. We assessed vocabulary knowledge in speech and sign, phonological awareness in speech and sign, receptive fingerspelling ability, and short-term memory at time 1 (T1). At times 2 (T2) and 3 (T3), we assessed word and text reading fluency. We found that (1) speech-based vocabulary strongly predicted word and text reading at T2 and T3, (2) fingerspelling ability was a strong predictor of word and text reading fluency at T2 and T3, (3) speech-based phonological awareness predicted word reading accuracy at T2 and T3 but did not predict text reading fluency, and (4) fingerspelling and STM predicted word reading latency at T2 while sign-based phonological awareness predicted this outcome measure at T3. These results suggest that fingerspelling may have an important function in facilitating the construction of orthographical/phonological representations of printed words for deaf children and strengthening word decoding and recognition abilities.https://www.mdpi.com/2226-471X/7/1/51deafnessreading developmentbimodal bilingual educationword readingtext readingsign language |
| spellingShingle | Ellen Ormel Marcel R. Giezen Harry Knoors Ludo Verhoeven Eva Gutierrez-Sigut Predictors of Word and Text Reading Fluency of Deaf Children in Bilingual Deaf Education Programmes Languages deafness reading development bimodal bilingual education word reading text reading sign language |
| title | Predictors of Word and Text Reading Fluency of Deaf Children in Bilingual Deaf Education Programmes |
| title_full | Predictors of Word and Text Reading Fluency of Deaf Children in Bilingual Deaf Education Programmes |
| title_fullStr | Predictors of Word and Text Reading Fluency of Deaf Children in Bilingual Deaf Education Programmes |
| title_full_unstemmed | Predictors of Word and Text Reading Fluency of Deaf Children in Bilingual Deaf Education Programmes |
| title_short | Predictors of Word and Text Reading Fluency of Deaf Children in Bilingual Deaf Education Programmes |
| title_sort | predictors of word and text reading fluency of deaf children in bilingual deaf education programmes |
| topic | deafness reading development bimodal bilingual education word reading text reading sign language |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2226-471X/7/1/51 |
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