Reading instruction for deaf students

Abstract

Deaf individuals generally have difficulties in the area of reading. Deaf students often have a very difficult time developing their reading abilities. There are five main areas of reading in which deaf students struggle. These areas include phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. There are a variety of strategies that have proven to be effective for deaf students in these areas. Incorporating these strategies in reading instruction will help to develop the reading abilities of deaf students. This paper will focus on deaf students whose main form of communication is American Sign Language. Different areas of reading instruction, instructional strategies, and sample modified lesson plans are included in this thesis