Rethinking the Education of Deaf Students: Theory and Practice from a Teacher's Perspective / Edition 1

by Sue Livingston, James E. Tucker

Overview

Here is a compelling and controversial text which asserts that Deaf students should be treated no differently than non Deaf students. The author, a veteran and practicing teacher, rejects the predominant view of Deaf students as special learners in need of language remediation and repair. Instead, she maintains that for Deaf students as well as their hearing counterparts, the primary educational goal is the making and sharing of understandings in various subjects. Furthermore, she views this as a process that occurs naturally, concomitantly, and reciprocally with the acquisition of language—regardless of one's hearing ability.

Livingston's assertion clashes with conventional Deaf education, which presumes that the wider learning begins after students master a sign system that codifies and reconstructs English. With a cumbersome, orderly, piecemeal, and unnatural approach, this traditional view frequently forces teachers to water down curriculums in an attempt to make English more readily acquired. As a result, Deaf students are deprived of rich and challenging content.

Rethinking the Education of Deaf Students offers an alternative and demonstrates how American Sign Language (ASL) and English can coexist in the same classroom, embedded in the content of what is being taught. Through clear theoretical explanations, field-tested teaching strategies, authentic examples of students' work, lesson plans, and sections on assessment, Livingston suggests ways to help students become educated language users. Her ideas hold enormous implications for those who teach Deaf students, develop school budgets, design programs, and train future teachers. More important, they may hold the key that unlocks the potential of Deaf students of all ages to become voracious readers and accomplished writers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780435072360
Publisher:	Heinemann
Publication date:	04/21/1997
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	180
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.44(d)
Age Range:	5 - 17 Years

About the Author

Sue Livingston has taught elementary through college-aged Deaf students for twenty-five years. She has also been a teacher-trainer at New York University and a literacy consultant for The School for the Deaf (Junior High School 47) and St. Joseph's School for the Deaf, both in New York City. She is a professor in the Program for Deaf Adults at LaGuardia Community College of the City University of New York, where she teaches reading and writing courses to classes made up exclusively of Deaf students.

Table of Contents

What Has Gone Wrong in the Education of Deaf Students and Why
Developing Competency in American Sign Language
Becoming Better Readers
Becoming Better Writers
Signing, Reading, and Writing to Learn in the Subject Areas
Conclusion
Appendixes:
A. Suggested Books for Very Beginning Young Readers
B. Suggested Reading Series for Beginning Older Readers
C. Suggested Wordless Picture Books for Beginning Readers in the Middle Grades
D. Suggested Books for Adult Inexperienced Readers
E. Model Essays and Collections of Writing for Teaching Writing to Adult Inexperienced Writers
F. Resources for Children's Informational Picture Books