Literacy and Deaf and Hard of Hearing Multilingual Learners

Introduction

This chapter focuses on effective literacy strategies that can be used by all stakeholders involved in the education of Deaf and hard of hearing multilingual learners. Instead of using the term English language learners, Cannon, et al. (2016) propose using d/Dhh Multilingual Learners (DML). The term multilingual is regarded as a value added model and not a deficit model because it values the role of the first language in learning the languages used by the school (Cannon, et al., 2016). DML also acknowledges the rich cultural and linguistic diversity as adding value to the educational environment. This chapter will adopt the label DML to refer to this population of students.

The statistics on DMLs is not clear because of how data is gathered on this population. A federal mandate for US public schools is to identify all students with disabilities and provide the appropriate service. This identification is complicated for English language learners (ELLs) due to the lack of appropriate assessments. Therefore ELLs are either under identified or over identified and placed in special education classes. As a result many ELLs with disabilities are not appropriately reported (DeMatthews, et al., 2014). Mainstream schools report data for deaf students under special education. Therefore existing data on DMLs may be unreliable and lead to a lack of adequate services for this population of students.

According to data from the Gallaudet Research Institute, 35% of the deaf and hard of hearing children in the United States schools are DMLs (GRI, 2013). This group of students is also one of the fastest growing groups in public schools in the United States and Canada (Cannon, et al., 2016). Majority of the DMLs were found to use Spanish as the home language (GRI, 2013), thus constituting 19% of the d/Dhh children in school at that time. There is a dearth of research on this population of students (Pizzo, 2016; Baker & Scott, 2016).

Deaf and hard of hearing multilinguals include deaf and hard of hearing students who use a combination of written languages and spoken languages and come from a home that uses a language other than English or American Sign Language (ASL) (Cannon & Luckner, 2016). This group includes immigrants and refugees that come to a host country that uses a spoken language and sign language different from their own. They are faced with the complexity of learning both ASL and English as well as US and Canadian culture (Cannon, et al., 2016; Gerner de Garcia, 1995; Pizzo, 2016). This has an impact on their literacy development, therefore it is important to address how the various stakeholders are involved in the literacy development of these students. This includes educators, school leaders, families and teacher preparation programs.