Editorial

Abstract

Editorial Sign and Phonology For more than a generation now, we have had research that seems to indicate that proficient deaf readers make use of the phonology or phonological base of English (or some other spoken language) in processing print. Leaving aside what we mean by phonology, or phones, or phonetic, or phonemic, or even morphophonemic, especially when they concern individuals with profound hearing losses, the consensus among some educators of the deaf assumes that deaf children must have access to the sound system to become literate. The conclusion is then that we educators must teach deaf children the sound system and then develop reading skills from there. Other educators of deaf children, at least from my discussions and reading, believe that such an approach—which we may think of as a "pure" phonological approach to reading —is too narrow and that deaf children must have mastery over a code of English before mastering literacy, but that the code does not necessarily have to be phonemic . It could be articulatory or graphemic (the 26 letters of the English alphabet) or dactemic (the 26 letters of the American manual alphabet. One could even make the case that, for a profoundly deaf child, the 43 or 44 phonemes of spoken American English present a barrier to reading, when our print system has only 26 symbols and that there is a closer relation between print and the manual alphabet, thus enabling us to bypass phonology. Why rely on phonology to teach reading to a child who does not hear when it can be presented visually by hand? Of course, it could be argued, although I have not seen the argument presented formally, that speech, print, and fingerspelling could be presented in an integrated manner so that through practice the use of one would evoke or elicit the others, what Vygotsky referred to as the motor impellent analyzer, if memory serves me correctly. The first two positions would seem to fit into the growing trend toward phonics in general education, at least if we are to believe our politicians. Perhaps that is giving the phonological advocates support. At least it seems consistent with an elemental, building block approach. Advocates of this approach, while careful not to attack ASL per se, often take the position that ASL does not have a written system, does not represent spoken phonemes, and therefore cannot be used to teach reading directly. The position of these advocates toward English-based signing appears to be mixed, with some arguing that they could be used to develop literacy and/or serve as a bridge from ASL to reading. A pure Bi-Bi approach, in my opinion, would be at odds with a pure phonological approach. By a "pure Bi-Bi approach ," I mean a program in which ASL is the first language and provides the "through the air" communication, English-based signing is not used, and English reading and writing are taught through ASL. Such an approach philosophically is much closer to the whole language philosophy which has been dominant, at least in the literature, until recently. We have not addressed what appear to be two very different educational perspectives. We accept generalized statements and turn them into clichés. Concerning reading and the sound system we should ask two very simple questions: Is a phonological base, however defined, necessary for the development of reading? Is a phonological base sufficient for the development of reading? The answer to the second question is, "Obviously not!" There are millions of hearing children proficient in their native spoken languages who do not develop reading proficiency. The answer to the first question is much more ambiguous. Volume 146, No. 1, 2001 American Annals of the Deaf Editorial The literate deaf undergraduate and graduate students I know seem to have gone through different paths in acquiring their skills. Their precollege classroom experiences are varied and include oral-only, Total Communication, and Bi-Bi instruction. It is not uncommon for one student to have had all three modes of instruction at one time or another. Aside from the fact that all of the students are intelligent, it is difficult to generalize about their educational experiences. I refer to...