A Review of the Evidence on Strategies for Teaching Children Who Are DHH Grapheme–Phoneme Correspondence

Abstract

Generally, learning to decode printed English has been a difficult skill to master for children who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH). The purpose of this review was to examine the literature regarding strategies used to teach the grapheme–phoneme relationship to children who are DHH. The authors identified six strategies in the evidence base relative to decoding: cued speech, visual phonics, speechreading, fingerspelling, semantic and iconic representation, and morphographemics. Nine articles containing 11 studies met the standards of research rigor established by the authors. The specifics of these nine articles (e.g., participant age and degree of hearing loss, research design, results) are presented in a table format. In addition, an explanation of each of the six strategies, a summary of the articles found in their support, and implications for the field are included.