What is your essential question? What is the best answer to your essential question and why?
My essential question is: How can a deaf elementary student best become grade level literate? The best answer that I found to answer my EQ was that the deaf child should have a strong foundation in ASL (American Sign Language).
What process did you take to arrive at this answer?
During research checks I found some articles that discussed the reason why the deaf population have, on average, a 4th grade reading level due to the lack of language that they obtain. That theory has been always in the back of my mind as a possible answer. But it wasnt until my 3rd interview with Maire Lubman where she enlighted me about the importance that deaf children should try to master ASL first. Once they acquired ASL, the English language should be not a greater challenge for the deaf students as it was before. Marie Lubman also shared her story when she was in school and the challenges that she faced. After that interview I felt confident that having a strong foundation in ASL first was indeed a good answer, but was it the best answer? When I went to Christy Neria class at Mesa Elementary School, before I could even ask her questions, she was giving me amazing information about BICS AND CALPS and how she incorporates them in her classroom. When I got the chance I asked her two important questions: How can a deaf student best become grade level literate? Christy informed me that deaf children need to be exposed to language from day one. They need to establish a first language. From there, the deaf child need a constant exposure to print words and communication in their first language. And that the parent(s) should always reference that ASL and English are two separate language so the child may acknowledge the difference. The second question was: What were some challenges that you faced in the classroom? Her response was that she wanted to see more parental involvement. She informed me that about 90% of deaf children have hearing parents and not all of those parents learn sign language. Thats why these children have such a hard time in school because they didn’t establish that foundation of language when they were young. And the perfect time for any child to learn a language is from 3 years old-5 years. So many of these children missed that and there is only so much I can do here at school. Lastly at the end of the day she let me borrow a book called Rasing and Educating a Deaf Child and I found that book to be beneficial to my senior project .
What problems did you face? How did you resolve them?
Through out the whole project I have had two main problem that I had to face. I like my mentorship at South Hills High School, but I want to go out to other places. I did not want to stay in the same place for mentorship, I wanted to encounter another perspective. There is a Deaf organization called GLAD (Greater Los Angeles Agency on Deafness) and they have many deaf community services. I wish I could have gone but the headquarter is in LA, and I did not have any transportation of arriving there. Though I was unable to go there, I found another place that was closer in the area, Mesa Elementary School.
My second challenge was being able to communicate with the teachers. Every teacher that I have come in contact with, except Christy Neria, are Deaf. Though I am slightly fluent in ASL I did have trouble understanding what they were expressing. To paint a picture of the situation, it is like a person who has taken a spanish level one and two class. Then they have to talk to a native spanish speaker. What seems like a normal speed of talking to the native spanish speaker seems like 500 mph to the somewhat beginner spanish speaking student. How I was able to overcome this challenges was just having to practice on signing, finger-spelling, and receptive skills.
What are the two most significant sources you used to answer your essential question and why?
I have a few sources that helped me to come to my best answer which is having a strong foundation in ASL. First was Christy Neria, who has been extremely helpful to me helping me become confident in my first and best answer and hep me come to my second answer. Another source was a book called Language Learning Practices with Deaf children and Raising and Educating a Deaf child.
What is your product and why?
My product is how to individual approach students needs. This is my product because you may be very knowledgeable in the subject that you teach but the main goal for a teacher is that the students understand. I realized that not every student are the same. Some may get it faster than others, some may not. My second independent component help me to figure that out.
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