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Teachers' perceptions of the use of ASL phonological instruction to develop ASL and English literacy in an ASL/English bilingual preschool
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Abstract:
This dissertation study seeks to understand how teachers who work in an ASL/English bilingual educational program for preschool children conceptualize and utilize phonological instruction of American Sign Language (ASL). While instruction that promotes phonological awareness of spoken English is thought to provide educational benefits to young children in terms of language proficiency and reading development, there is limited understanding of how deaf children may similarly benefit from the phonological instruction of ASL. Part of the resistance in promoting ASL may be related to how signs native to ASL do not directly map onto written English in the same way that spoken English does. However, ASL does incorporate the use of the manual alphabet, which is a manual representation of the English alphabet, and many signs in ASL do have partial or full overlap to words in the orthography of English. ASL also has the added benefit of being considered the natural language for deaf people, which allows teachers with the means to promote ASL phonological instruction in ways that allow students to access and utilize a language in ways that can maximize their ability to process information. Data were collected through teacher interviews and a follow-up survey. Interviews were conducted with preschool teachers and ASL specialists to gain insight into how they conceptualize and engage in phonological instruction with their deaf students. Interview questions focused on how teachers used phonological instruction for ASL development and also to enhance the student’s understanding of English. A follow-up survey was sent to the teachers with the intent of corroborating the findings in the interviews and to identify patterns of instruction that were prevalent within the individual classes. The analysis was conducted through a grounded theory approach that identified major themes that emerged from the data (Charmaz, 2006; Strauss & Corbin, 1990).
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Keyword:
American Sign Language; Bilingual education; Deaf; Deaf education; Early childhood education; Emergent Literacy; Instructional Strategies; Phonological Awareness; Teacher Education
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URL: http://hdl.handle.net/2142/29797
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