The research paper is about an investigation of the relationship between reading and signing skills in deaf children. The study was held in the Netherlands, where 87 children had participated in the experimental research. Out of 87 participants, 50 of them were male children while 37 were female, and they all were drawn from five different individual schools in the Netherlands and had similar characteristics in terms of hearing problems. The research question, however, concerns not the definition of the relation between the reading and the signing skills of deaf children, but the locus of these relationships.
Indeed, when considering the article closer, one will find out that there is no need to prove the existence of the link between the skills above since it has already been proven in previous studies. The research question posed by the authors of the study has much to do with my research. The given paper also addresses the issue of teaching to young students, particularly to disabled ones, or the ones with specific deficiencies, either mental or physical ones.
Moreover, the article under discussion renders the problem of the choice of a particular teaching strategy. There is no secret that teaching to younger students presupposes dealing with several issues, especially the means to link the theories learned during classes with their practical application. While in the given case, the link between theory and practice is direct, helping children render the acquired information in the form of signs into specific messages turns into a challenge for a teacher due to the difference between traditional methods, including aural exercises, and the required one, in which there are no aural activities.
Result and findings reveal that on the relationship between sign vocabulary reading vocabulary shows insignificant correlations of 0.42, and at the same time that of STM span for words gives a correlation value of 0.46. This result indicates that there is no relationship between sign vocabulary and reading and STM span of words does not influence reading vocabulary. On the relationship between story comprehensiveness in SLN and written Dutch, there is a strong correlation with a significant level of 0.58 and 0.75, respectively (Hermans, Knoors, Ormel & Verhoeven, 2008). This result is consistent with the model assumptions by the department of bilingual education programs.
The so-called “locus” mentioned above is, however, yet to be found; according to the hypothesis provided by the authors of the research, the locus exists on a lexical level. To define the locus in their qualitative study, the authors use such a method as an experiment. Fifty boys and 37 girls were chosen for participating in the study. In the course of the study, the link between sign language skills and short-term memory capacity was defined. The data was analyzed with the help of the RAVEN-CPM tool.
From the correlation scores, it is not easy to know the extent of the relationship between the vocabulary scores and overall scores for both study skills. The study also reveals that children in upper grades of primary education acquire a more significant proportionate of new reading vocabulary when they do their own reviews than when they are being taught in class (Hermans, Knoors, Ormel & Verhoeven, 2008). The parental factor plays a limited role concerning sign language learning and comprehension skills.
From the findings, it is clear that parental factor does not influence the learning ability of deaf children but the nature and condition of the study environment. Students with high sign language of the Netherlands can read and write the Dutch language more comprehensively hence the encouragement that deaf students should be allowed to learn sign language of the Netherlands as this will improve their learning and reading skills. The implications are in line with Paul and Trezek’s (Paul & Trezek, 2003) findings, where they note that deaf children have problems with text-based reading skills. In the context of my paper, the research implications can be used to define the means of addressing the issues that children with disabilities face in primary school.
References
Hermans, D., Knoors, H., Ormel, E. & Verhoeven, L. (2008). The relationship between the reading and signing skills of deaf children in bilingual education programs. Journal of Deaf Students and Deaf Education, 13(4), 518–530. Web.
Trezek, B. V. & Paul, P. V. (2003). Processes and components of reading. In M. Marschark & P. Spencer (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of deaf studies, language and education (pp. 99–115). New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Web.