Literacy in Deaf Education

Professional Organizations and Topics

Projects and information from the Laurent Clerc National Deaf Education Center on literacy with deaf and hard of hearing children and young adults. Information about the Shared Reading Project, learning from Deaf adults, etc.

The barriers to literacy improvement are not insurmountable, but they are varied and numerous, including late identification of the majority of deaf children, negative attitudes and misinformation about Deaf people and their visual language and culture, lack of descriptive, longitudinal research on diverse deaf children, their families and their school environments, and lack of knowledge about the nature of Deaf bilingualism in home, school and community contexts, including the relationship of American Sign Language and English literacy. The Signs of Literacy (SOL) research was begun in 1993 at Gallaudet University in order to begin to address these gaps in the knowledge base.

Educational and fun TV program for deaf children. The first web and television series which features American Sign Language (ASL) as the primary language used.