“Reading and deafness”: a review

Abstract

One of most pressing topics of concern within the field of deaf education is the pattern of little progress in reading achievement for deaf and hard of hearing (d/hh) students in middle and high school (Yoshinaga-Itano & Downey, 1996; Gallaudet Research Institute, 2003). Researchers over the last 45 years have repeatedly argued that deaf education lacks the volume and quality of research it needs to increase the quality of educational opportunity, especially in the areas of reading and reading comprehension (Luckner & Handley, 2008; Luckner, Sebald, Cooney, Young, & Muir, 2005/2006). Reading and Deafness: Theory, Research and Practice (Trezvek, Paul & Wang, 2009) has been hailed as a ‘‘first-of-its-kind text’’ that provides ‘‘a comprehensive and balanced view of reading and deafness’’ (back cover). Unfortunately, instead of building on the current knowledge base in the field of literacy, the authors reached back a decade to a document with a deeply troubled history, the summary of the findings of the National Reading Panel (NRP, 2000) in order to structure a book with questionable utility. Instead of heeding the slew of articles that appeared after the NRP summary was released, highlighting the importance of what Allington (2002), and others refer to as the ‘‘missing pillars’’ of reading instruction (including motivation, access to appropriate texts, etc.) the book’s authors focused heavily on phonics and phonemic awareness with less emphasis on other areas of reading instruction. In this review, we argue that the book’s emphasis on sound-based pathways to literacy, and lack of depth and clarity in other areas such as vocabulary, engagement, and comprehension are troubling in terms of their treatment of research and implications for practice. Much of our critique mirrors the response of Allen et al. (2009) to the authors’ 2008 article on the