Essie was now 11 years old, and had stepped up to the next grade level at school. Today she was faced with some new vocabulary words; borrow, give, lend, take. She looked at the two words closely, then began to write them on to her vocabulary practice sheet. B-O-R-R-O-W, G-I-V-E, L-E-N-D, T-A-K-E. On the next line she repeated the words, continuing; as instructed by her teacher; until she had written each five times on her practice sheet.
Never very interested in reading and writing for very long, Essie began to chat with her classmate in ASL, both were Deaf and continued to develop their skills in American Sign Language. Like many deaf children of hearing parents, both girls did not begin to sign until they were school age, leaving them many years behind other kids their age in communication and academic skills. Because they didn't really have anyone to chat with at home in ASL, they took every moment of opportunity to finally have a conversation with another person, who could understand what they were trying to say and vice versa.
Essie's teacher allowed the girls to chat for a few minutes, she knew that both of the girls had been struggling with reading and vocabulary. For a long time Essie would easily read the words, finger-spell them, attempt to speak the syllables as her speech teacher had taught her, and even put the words in proper order for phrases and sentences. She would even sign all of the words on the page in her vocabulary or reading workbook, but when it came time for a test, Essie struggled with the deeper meaning of English words and grammar. Unless there was an example of the words or sentences to use as a guide, Essie sometimes appeared to be seeing the words that she had been working on for a long time as if seeing for the first time. The teacher could see that there was no connection between the printed word on the paper and the signs that Essie so easily used.
Today her teacher sighed to herself, and redirected Essie back to her vocabulary work sheet, and then to the page in her reading book that used the vocabulary. The reading for this week started with the sentence "The boy gave the book to the girl." Essie started by signing in English word order as she had been taught at her old school, "THE BOY GAVE THE BOOK TO THE GIRL."
Her teacher translated the sentence into ASL "BOOK (rhetorical eyebrow lift and head nod) BOY (body shift left) GIVE-TO (directional verb to the right) (classifier to indicate another person, eyebrow lift with facial 'who') GIRL (body shift to the right).
Essie watched her teacher, they copied the sentence in ASL with a look of bewilderment on her face.
The next line read, "The boy borrowed some paper from the girl." Again Essie signed the sentence in the English grammar structure that she had learned at her old school, and then watched as the teacher translated the sentence into ASL.
This time as Essie copied her teacher, she did so with the look of bewilderment changing to curiosity.
As she read the next sentence, Essie started to make the changes herself, the sentence read in English, "The girl loaned some paper to the boy." Essie asked the teacher what the sign was for 'loan' and was shown the sign. In ASL the sign for borrow and loan are the same sign, with only the direction changing indicating to another person or from another person. Essie asked a second time, to be shown the sign, and the teacher took a moment, reached over to the paper cubby and took out a piece of paper.
Placing the paper in front of Essie, the teacher signed BORROW, and took the paper, then she signed LOAN and gave the paper back to Essie. Then she wrote on the paper, 'I borrow the paper', showed it to Essie, then repeated the signed phrase PAPER BORROW-TO-ME and took the paper again, wrote the words 'I loan the paper', and repeated the signed phrase for the sentence and the action of loaning the paper to Essie.
Essie's eyes widened with understanding, she made the connection, the words on the page had the same meaning as the signs in American Sign Language. Picking up the paper, she ran to another student and signed PAPER LOAN-TO-YOU, gave them the paper, then PAPER BORROE-TO-ME and took the paper back. For the rest of the day, Essie borrowed and loaned a multitude of items from and to other students and adults in the classroom and in the classroom next door where she went for math and science.
From that point on, Essie's ability to understand written English began to improve as her ability to translate written English into ASL, by the end of the month she was translating many of her reading assignments easily, and remembering the meaning of the assignment. By the end of the school year, Essie was reading books on her own and had finally begun to enjoy reading for pleasure, opening new opportunities for learning things that interested her.
No comments:
Post a Comment