1) Many deaf students have poor reading skills, with half leaving school at a reading level of 7 years old and few achieving an age-appropriate reading level. 2) Deaf students face challenges in developing vocabulary due to disordered language skills and lack of language models at home, and may recognize words without understanding their meanings. 3) Supporting deaf students' reading and vocabulary requires planning lessons that limit copying text, subtitle videos, and teach essential words through repetition and visual aids over multiple sessions.

1. Deaf students Thomas Tallis

2. • 24 deaf students in the school

3. • What does deaf mean?
• Any hearing loss
• Impaired access to speech sounds
• Most deaf students have additional needs

4. Myths
• Deaf students can all understand fluent British
Sign Language
• Deaf students can read the material
• Subtitles provide full access

5. Important to know
• 95% of deaf students have hearing parents and
therefore no natively fluent language model at home
• Most deaf students have disordered language skills
• Most deaf students have working memory problems
• Most deaf students have delayed socio emotional
development

6. Reading in Deaf students
• Seminal Study by Conrad in 1979
• Half of deaf school leavers leave school at 16
years with a reading age of 7 years
(functionally illiterate)
• Less than 15% had a functional reading age
(11 – 12 years)
• None had an age appropriate reading score
• Lichtenstein 1998 repeated these results

7. Functional reading includes
• Newspapers
• Emailing
• MSN
• Texting
• Information at work
• Leaflets
• Road signs
• Safety information
• Food labels

8. • Higher incidence of mental health problems
• Development of identity usually transitions in
secondary school as children develop a bi-
cultural identity: deaf community and hearing
community

9. What can I do to support deaf
students?
• Planning in advance
• Speak to the student not the staff supporting
• Do not ask deaf children to copy or read large
amounts of text
• Subtitle all clips including ‘You tube’, if you
give us notice we will try to help
• Key words

10. Reading
• Urban regeneration:
Improvements to
housing, jobs ,
leisure and the
environment in a
town or city.

11. Regeneration in London 2012

12. in London 2012

13. Regeneration in London 2012
• One of the most positive outcomes of London
winning the bid to host the London 2012
Olympic games is the amount of Urban
regeneration that will take place. The Olympic
park is a perfect example of Urban
regeneration. The regeneration and
development of the Lower Lea Valley in east
London, the site for the Olympic Park, will:

14. Source of information
• A London 2012 Education resources : Linked
to GCSE language levels

15. Highlighted words not in vocabulary
• One of the most positive outcomes of London
winning the bid to host the London 2012
Olympic games and Paralympic games is the
amount of Urban regeneration that will take
place. The Olympic park is a perfect example
of Urban regeneration. The regeneration and
development of the Lower Lea Valley in east
London, the site for the Olympic Park, will:

16. Misread words
• One of the most positive outcomes of London
winning the bid to host the London 2012
Olympic games and Paralympic games is the
amount of Urban regeneration that will take
place. The Olympic park is a perfect example
of Urban regeneration. The regeneration and
development of the Lower Lea Valley in east
London, the site for the Olympic Park, will:

17. –example  examine

18. Meaning lost……

19. Words student did not understand in this
piece
• Urban • Development
• Regeneration • Speed up
• Environment • During
• Outcome • Raise awareness
• Host • Amenities
• Bid • Restore
• Olympic • Residents
• Paralympics • Beyond
• example • Activities
• Take place

20. Vocab devt is disordered:
Choose words for life
• Urban • Development
• Regeneration • Speed up
• Environment • During
• Outcome • Raise awareness
• Host • Amenities
• Bid • Restore
• Olympic • Residents
• Paralympics • Beyond
• example • Activities
• Take place

21. What the students say…….
• There are a lot of new words on my course.
• Sometimes I know the word and can’t remember the sign.
• Sometimes the word is signed to me but when I see the word
written down I can’t recognise it.
• What helps you learn new words?
• I will write down about 12 words. I like a picture of the sign
next to the word. I can sit and read and sign to myself, maybe
each one five times and then I need to repeat this every day
for two weeks and then in the end maybe I am ready to learn
some more words.

22. Challenges to word learning
• May recognise the word but • Using context to guess
not have a solid meaning • Problem of visually similar
(semantic representation) words
of it • Difficulty of words whose
• Knows lots of empty words signs have more than one
meaning
• May have poor
phonological
representations
• May be poor lip readers

23. The sign for all of these words is the same:
context is used to understand
• probable
• possible
• probability
• possibility
• potential
• can
• could

24. Remember
• The students are individuals. These are broad
explanations
• Keep expectations high but achievable

25. Expertise in DSC
• Come and ask us for support
• We have a bank of resources
• We are here to modify your lesson plans and
to work with you
• Come and speak to us!