Teaching Phonics to Deaf Children: Guidance for Teachers
National Deaf Children's Society. (2016).
London (United Kingdom): National Deaf Children's Society, 1-81.
This guideline from the National Deaf Children's Society provides recommendations for classroom teachers and service providers on how to teach phonics to school-aged children who are deaf and hard of hearing.
National Deaf Children's Society (United Kingdom)
Consider the following if a visual cueing system seems like a possibility for the deaf or hard of hearing student:
<ul>
<li>A multisensory approach to teaching letter sounds is recommended for all students.</li>
<li>If your setting already has an available scheme to introduce gestures for specific sounds, determine whether that scheme would meet the deaf student’s needs.</li>
<li>Build upon the deaf<span style="color: #333333;"> or hard of hearing</span> student's chosen visual cueing system, if applicable.</li>
<li>A visual cueing system can be used for letters that are being confused or supplement the teaching of all letters.</li>
</ul>
For students who are deaf or hard of hearing, a good listening environment is essential to learning, so educators should consider the following environmental characteristics:
<ul>
<li>background noise inside and outside the classroom;</li>
<li>echo and reverberation of sound within the classroom;</li>
<li>good lighting to support visual input;</li>
<li>a clear view of the clinician/instructor;</li>
<li>a range of visual resources; and</li>
<li>a limitation of unnecessary visual distractions.</li>
</ul>
Clinicians providing services to students who are deaf or hard of hearing should be aware of, understand the impact of, and take into account:
<ul>
<li>the type of hearing loss (e.g., mild/moderate/severe/profound, temporary vs. permanent, fluctuating vs. constant, unilateral vs. bilateral, etc.); </li>
<li>the type of hearing technology (e.g., digital hearing aids, cochlear implants, hearing assistive technology systems, etc.); </li>
<li>the method of communication (e.g., spoken language, Sign Language, Cued Speech, Sign Supported English, etc.); and </li>
<li>the listening, communication, and learning style unique to the student.</li>
</ul>
To ensure that deaf or hard of hearing students' learning experiences are positive, they should experience as much success as possible when they start to learn phonics. The first sounds you teach should be the ones that the deaf or hard of hearing student can easily discriminate, which may mean deviating from the order of the phonics program. The Teacher of the Deaf will able to advise you on the best order for each deaf or hard of hearing student.
For students who are deaf or hard of hearing, their hearing device technology should be checked daily (ideally prior to a teaching session) to ensure that it is working properly with the correct settings and sound levels for the student's individual hearing loss.
Teachers of phonics to deaf or hard of hearing students should contact a speech and language therapist or Teacher of the Deaf to further discuss the following:
<ul>
<li>the student is not progressing at the age-expected level;</li>
<li>guidance for providing extra listening and language opportunities;</li>
<li>guidance on phonological awareness activities (e.g., exploring voice sounds, oral blending and segmenting);</li>
<li>collaboration for ongoing assessments and teaching of grapheme-phoneme correspondence; and</li>
<li>strategies to introduce new vocabulary.</li>
</ul>
You may need to give more time for a student who is deaf or hard of hearing to respond during phonic decoding tasks as all students must learn to
<ul>
<li>recognize the grapheme (written letter) and the phoneme (letter sound);</li>
<li>identify the sound in the word in the order they occur;</li>
<li>hold the sounds in their memory; and</li>
<li>blend those sounds together to accurately decode the word.</li>
</ul>
For students who are deaf or hard of hearing, a variety of teaching and learning strategies, such as visual supports, are beneficial for teaching phonics in the classroom environment.
