Test-Taking Skills

Summary and thoughts on:

LaSasso, C. J. (1999) Test-taking skills: A missing component of deaf students' curriculum. American Annals of the Deaf, 144, 35-43.

School districts administer many standardized tests. But standardized tests may not accurately reflect deaf students' learning. Test-taking skills are important, because many teachers consider test performance a direct reflection of learning. In other words, if the child cannot answer a test question, many teachers will assume that the child does not know the answer. Teachers need a way to find out what the child can and can't do, or what they know and don't know, which is why they give tests. (Oh, and because of NCLB.)

Two test-taking strategies that can be taught to deaf students are Question-Answer Relationships (QAR) and the SMART method.

1. Question-Answer Relationships (QAR). Students learn to analyze how they could or should have gotten an answer to a question.

-Right there: the answer is clearly stated in the text.

-Think and search: the answer is not in the text. The answer must be inferred or constructed from different parts of the text.

-Author and you: the answer is not in the text. The answer must be constructed using prior knowledge and text information.

-On your own: the answer is not in the text. The answer comes directly from the student's experiences and prior knowledge.

2. The SMART method. Students write in the margins of their texts. They put a check mark to mean "I understand" or "I have no questions." They put a question mark to mean "I'm confused" or "I have questions."

Students need to ask the teacher why they are reading a text. They also need to ask how their comprehension will be assessed (multiple choice, essay, etc.).

There are some problems with tests. Teachers need to remember that a student's test performance may not show what the child can actually do. Here are some problems with tests:

-A child can answer a question correctly without having the comprehension. This is especially true for multiple choice and true/false questions. They might have just guessed right.

-The child might already know the answer to the question. They might not have learned the answer from reading the text on the test. For example, if there were a text about cows and later the question "Where does the cow sleep?" the child might get it right because he already knew about cows. He didn't even need to read the text. That question did not test his reading ability at all.

-A child can answer a question wrong even though he has the comprehension. He might not have prepared well, he might not be familiar with the types of questions on the test, he might not have understood a vocabulary word, he might have difficulty organizing thoughts for an essay, he might be a poor speller, he might not have used his time wisely on the test, he might have anxiety in testing situations... the list goes on.

Authentic assessment, such as portfolio assessment is not bad. However, portfolios should include tests. Portfolios should not be instead of tests.

The author emphasizes that it is important to teach deaf students the information that will be the test, but it is also important to teach the students how to take the test--strategies. Deaf children will not be empowered to reach their full potential in society until they are able to demonstrate their comprehension of what they have learned. It's not enough to know things. You have to be able to show what you have learned.

Enjoyable

Conference was great! Elder Holland bore powerful testimony of the Book of Mormon during the Sunday afternoon session. Wow. There were so many talks that I loved. Elders Holland and Oaks, along with President Uchtdorf, are always my favorites, and they did not disappoint. I may have a new favorite in Elder Christofferson, though.

It's not too late to watch General Conference! It's broadcast in a variety of languages, including ASL. Soon it will be available to read online, and I'm looking forward to the podcast, which is called LDS General Conference. Aptly named. I get plenty of time to listen to the podcast, since I do so much driving for work.

If you see just one session, I think I would recommend the Saturday afternoon session.

Haha

Last night, I watched a show on Hulu, called "Better Off Ted." It was weird, but it cracked me up a few times.

These two nerdy scientists had been scolded by their boss (I think), Ted. One scientist commented, "Ted's like the angle opposite the hypotenuse--he's always right." The funny part was that the other scientist totally got it, like this was not an usual thing to say at all.

Musical Training for Children with CIs

Yucel, E., Sennaroglu, G., & Belgin, E. (2009). The family oriented musical training for children with cochlear implants: Speech and musical perception results of two year follow-up. International Journal of Pediatric Otorhinolaryngology, 73, 1043-1052.

This study included a group of 18 children who received Advanced Bionics cochlear implants and were activated with the HiRes strategy. All were enrolled in an auditory verbal learning program. Nine of the children made up the experimental group; nine made up the control group. The two groups had similar audiograms in three conditions: unaided, aided (hearing aided), aided (CI). The experimental group may have been a little older, but there seems to be an error in the age of the control group, so I don't know. They were about the same age (no significant difference, anyway).

The experimental group participants were given a keyboard and instructions for a music training program. The parent-led training was supposed to take about 10 minutes each day, and it involved pitch and rhythm tasks.

All of the children were evaluated pre-implant, and post implant at 1, 3, 6, 9, 12, and 24 months. They used several assessments: the Ling 6 sound test, a word identification test (spondees), a sort of open-set measure involving Mr. Potato Head, and a sentence test. At 12 and 24 months, they administered a musical stages profile, which covered detection of and reaction to environmental and musical sounds, exposure to music, participation in a musical environment, melody and dynamic changes, pitch differences, rhythmical changes, and emotional aspects of music. The parents also completed the MAIS or IT MAIS and the MUSS, which look at everyday functioning with sound and speech, and with their listening devices.

At 24 months post implant, the MAIS/IT MAIS, MUSS, Ling, word identification, and Potato Head results were pretty similar between groups. The music group children did better on the Potato Head task early on, but the control group caught up by 12 months post implant. Although the music group appeared to do slightly better, there were no significant differences on the sentence scores.

At 12 months post implant, there was a significant difference between the groups in the area of exposure to music. No differences in the other areas of the musical stages profile. But at 24 months post implant, there were many significant differences. There were differences on 20 of the 26 questions. This included better reactions to sounds, more exposure to music, better skills with melody and dynamic changes, better skills with rhythmical changes, and increased reaction to the emotional aspects of music. Some children in the control group did well on all of these, as well as the music group. But the music group as a whole did better than the control group as a whole.

So this shows that music training can help children with cochlear implants increase their reactions to and skills with music.

But I have a problem.

OK, the listening/speech measures were fairly objective. The child either repeated the spondee correctly or he didn't. The child either picked up the correct Potato Head body part of he didn't. But the music stages profile was a parent questionnaire. The parents answered questions like "Does your child react to lively music?" and "Does your child ever spontaneously clap hands to music?" Of course, the parents would not deliberately falsify information (I hope!), but knowing your child is in the music group could introduce bias. Maybe an "occasionally" becomes a "frequently."

This research would have been much stronger if someone actually evaluated the children's musical abilities rather than having the parents think back on how their child did with these things. Also, having filled out the questionnaire at 12 months post implant (when there were significant differences only in exposure to music), the parents would have known what the researchers were looking for the next time around, even if they didn't remember specific questions (and there were only 26 questions). Some of the questions rely on the parents' own musical ability (such as "Does your child sing the correct tune and all the words to any song?"), which was not evaluated. Rhythm, which kids with CIs pick up well, can fool you into thinking that the pitch ("tune") was correct. I can't figure out why these researchers went with this weak questionnaire, which doesn't even appear to be norm-referenced. It looks like the researchers made it up, because it says to write feedback beside unclear/difficult questions so that they can improve the questionnaire.

I went into this article very interested, and I was excited to see those significant differences on the music stages profile results, but then I looked at the actual music stages profile questions and was disappointed.

On the other hand, children in both groups got 4s and 5s (out of 5) on the questionnaire. So children with CIs that do not provide fine structure information can develop some musical skills, from their parents' perspectives. That's worth a big old YAY to them!

Acquisition of English as a Second Language

This is a textbook chapter written by Jim Cummins. His work on language learning has applications to ESL, deaf education, and even to language disorders and normal language/literacy development. Love him.

Cummins, J. (1994). The acquisition of English as a second language. In Spangenberg-Urbschat, K. & Pritchard, R. (Eds.) Kids come in all languages: Reading instruction for ESL students (pp. 36-62). Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Why do some children develop proficiency in a second language easily and others struggle? And what exactly does proficiency mean? How long should we expect for children to reach different levels of proficiency in English as a second language. What influences the rate of English acquisition and how far children can go in their English learning?

There are two kinds of English proficiency: conversational language and academic language. People assume that these two are closely related, but they are not. Academic language is more cognitively demanding. That means it requires more brain power. There are two continua (that would be "continuums") that combine, and it's best shown in a chart. So here you go.

I like this chart, because it has examples. So left to right you have cognitive undemanding (easier) to cognitively demanding (harder). Top to bottom you have context embedded (easier) to context reduced (harder). Context embedded means that you have clues to the meaning of the words right in the situation. Most conversations at home are context embedded. Vocabulary is predictable. Concepts are familiar. Most instruction at school is context reduced, although there certainly is a push toward more context embedded instruction (more visuals, especially). When the context is reduced, the child has to figure out what the teacher is saying based on language alone. I hope this makes sense.

Language in the home (conversational language) is usually in square A of the chart, sometimes square C, less often squares B or D. Language at school (academic language) is usually in square D of the chart, sometimes square B. It is rarely in squares C or A. You can see Cummins' point, that conversational language and academic language are different, even if both are English.

When a child begins learning a second language, where do they start on this chart? You guessed it: square A. It's not that the child deliberately decides to start in square A. It's just easier to develop that kind of language, since it's not cognitively demanding and has plenty of context clues to help construct meaning from language. When a child is able to have a conversation in English, should we assume that they can comprehend classroom instruction in English? Let's check the chart... nope.

Cummins invented vocabulary to describe this. Basic interpersonal communicative skills (BICS) is achieved first. Cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP) comes later. But how much later?

It takes two years or less to develop BICS. It takes five to seven years to develop CALP. While the child is learning English, their native English-speaking peers are learning through English. If an ESL child is in an immersion setting (in an English-speaking classroom), he will remain behind the native speakers for many years. By the time he attains CALP, those native speakers have already learned more than he has. So he has to catch up. In large scale studies, it took an average of seven years to catch up. We all know what an average means, right? A lot of the kids took longer than seven years.

Stopping ESL support when the child gains BICS in English is dangerous. It might seriously harm the child's academic development, especially if the child is in a very "square D" classroom.

Now, what makes a difference in the rate of second language acquisition?

-Quantity of language exposure (length of time, how much the child is paying attention)

-Quality of language exposure

-Child's age

-Cognitive abilities

-L1 literacy (literacy skills in the first language)

-Personality

-Personal confidence (are they willing to put themselves out there and be brave, trying to communicate in the second language?)

-Motivation

Alright, so let's talk application to deaf language/literacy development. My concern is "quality of language exposure." Hearing aids and cochlear implants provide poor exposure to spoken language. If the child is in a literacy-poor home environment, English print exposure may also be poor. Classrooms for deaf children MUST have plenty of English print exposure. This is totally accessible to all children with normal vision. "Cognitive abilities" is another factor that concerns me with deaf children. So many deaf children do not begin developing their cognitive abilities at birth, as hearing children do. This is because they do not have comprehensible language input until their hearing loss is identified and they either receive a cochlear implant or receive ASL exposure. Language exposure during infancy is the way to develop cognition. "L1 literacy" is obviously a huge concern, if a child receives poor signed input for several years before entering school. This reminds me of the Strong & Prinz (1997) study, which examined the relationship between ASL and English skills.

Now let's talk application to hearing literacy development. Some children struggle with reading in kindergarten (I don't know about your school district, but our kids read in kindergarten), and it suddenly clicks in a year or two later. My brother was one of those children. Could this be because the child hasn't yet developed CALP? After all, it takes five to seven years to develop CALP for ESL kids... is there evidence that it develops sooner in the native language? Just a thought.

Developing Comprehension Strategies in Deaf Children

Cerra, K., Watts-Taffe, S., & Rose, S. (1997). Fostering reader response and developing comprehension strategies in deaf and hard of hearing children. American Annals of the Deaf, 142, 379-386.

How can you help deaf and hard of hearing children understand and enjoy what they read? This requires a combination of two teaching strategies: reading comprehension instruction and encouraging response to literature.

Prior knowledge is very important. (This goes back to the importance of language development, regardless of the language--kids need to have concepts, they need to be able to describe their experiences. The specific words don't matter. That's why hearing ESL students become better English readers when they have a strong grounding in their first language, whether it's Spanish, Korean, or any other language.)

Enjoyment of children's literature is based on the reader response theory. The reader response theory says that the relationship between the reader and the text is one where the reader "creates" the literature. The literature really only exists while the child is reading. (Weird concept, but it makes sense. Think about poetry. What I read and what you read might be two different things. For example, there is a popular song right now, "Viva la Vida," by Coldplay. People argue about what the words mean. When I read/hear those words, I think of a person who was a failure at their life. Some people say it's about the French Revolution. Some say it's about Christ or a Christian Church. Some say it's about a person who lost their lover. Some say it's about a Roman emperor. The meaning depends on the person listening. Reader response theory says that the meaning of a text depends on the person reading. We construct the meaning for ourselves.)

Related to the reader response theory, the reader is viewed as a builder of meaning. The reader is part of a community of builders of meaning. The builder is also a fixer, who is able to identify and fix breakdowns in meaning. This is so important. Metacognition, right? You have to know when you don't understand, and you have to know what to do about it.

This article also reviews the two ways of reading: efferent and aesthetic. Aesthetic reading is where you read for enjoyment. The main focus is on what the child experiences, thinks, and feels during reading. An example is when I read a book about autism just because I think autism is interesting and I enjoy reading about it. Efferent reading is where you read to learn information that you will use after reading. An example is when I read a book about autism to look for ways to work with my students more effectively. I could read the same book for two different reasons: aesthetic or efferent. You can see this as a continuum with aesthetic on one end and efferent on the other end. It's possible to read for a purpose in the middle: maybe you really enjoy the topic but also will be looking for information that you need. A teacher can and should establish the attitude toward a text. The purpose for reading a text in school should be clear.

Fiction books are best read with an aesthetic stance/perspective. However, it can be a challenge for teachers to take an aesthetic stance and make that stance clear to children. It's easy to ask efferent, factual questions. But in order to develop reader response, it is important for children to read both efferently and aesthetically. For aesthetic reading, teachers can ask questions like "How did the text make you feel?" or "What does this text remind you of?" Aesthetic reading is all about feelings, perceptions, and connections to prior experience.

Now let's talk about comprehension. There are two ways to do this: 1. help the students comprehend a specific text (set a purpose for reading, build background knowledge, do postreading activities, etc.), 2. teach students comprehension strategies. Which do you think will help the children more in the long run? You guessed it: the second one.

When they have comprehension strategies, children can pick up a new book and apply the strategies they need. Teachers must help the children learn to use strategies deliberately and independently. The children need to think about how to understand the text.

One strategy is to ask questions while reading. They ask themselves questions about the text, and they answer their own questions while they read. For example, while reading Catching Fire, I was asking myself, "Will Katniss end up with Gale or Peeta?" I hope it's Peeta!

So that is a strategy. There are other strategies, which the article will get into. But first, there are three ways to teach comprehension strategies. Whew.

First is the direct explanation approach. You tell the students what strategy is being learned, why it is important to know, when it can be used, how to use it, and how to figure out if it is working.

Second is explicit modeling. You do a reading behavior in front of students while talking about that behavior. A think-aloud is an example. You talk about the process you are using for comprehension.

Third is called leading activities. You set up activities that will give the children experience in using comprehension strategies. K-W-L (What I know, What I want to know, What I've learned) is an example. Another example is having students write what they felt after reading a book.

So know you know how to teach reading comprehension strategies. Let's learn what the strategies are. What will you teach the children? This is where we are combining reader response theory and comprehension strategies. When readers use comprehension strategies, they read more efficiently and have more time and energy to respond to the text. When readers interact with and respond to text, their comprehension improves.

Here are four common strategies that you should teach. You can teach any of these using direct explanation, explicit modeling, or leading activities.

-Using prior knowledge. They think about what they already know that could be related to what they are reading.

-Making inferences. They make conclusions about what is implied, but not directly stated, in a text.

-Asking and answering questions. We already went over this. But it is where a reader asks herself questions about what she is reading, what she plans to read, or what she has read. This easily applies to efferent reading, but it's also important for aesthetic reading.

-Dealing with graphic information. It's important for young readers to look at the pictures. Pictures provide clues to the text's meaning. Older readers may not have pictures in their texts, but they need to pay attention to tables, charts, diagrams, and maps.

Funny, these are not specific to deaf children. I have used these strategies with hearing children. I guess as long as a child has a solid foundation in a native language, they can make use of normal reading comprehension strategies. It's when you're playing catch-up with language or the child cannot access instruction adequately that you need special education methodology. Or, obviously, if the child has a language/learning disability. But there is no reason to think that deaf children will automatically have language/learning disabilities.

How Do Profoundly Deaf Children Learn to Read?

This is the first of what I would like to make a series of summaries/commentaries on journal articles relating to speech, language, and literacy. My professional interests are deafness, phonology, and autism, so expect to see those topics show up. I guess I will call this Research Is for Everyone, Volume 1.

Here's the citation:

Goldin-Meadow, S., & Mayberry, R. (2001). How do profoundly deaf children learn to read? Learning Disabilities Research and Practice, 16, 222-229.

Most hearing children learn how to speak pretty easily, but many hearing children struggle with learning how to read. They must learn how the spoken language they already know relates to the printed words on a page. They use the sounds of the language (phonology) to figure out the printed words. Of course, they already know the meanings of the words. For example, they know that the sounds "mmm," "ah," "mmm" mean that wonderful woman who gives them juice and lets them watch cartoons. It's just a matter of figuring out that "mmm"=M, "ah"=O, "mmm"=M. So they need to know the spoken language (here, English). And they need to know the phonology (sounds) of the spoken language relates to the printed letters/words.

Deaf children have limited access to English phonology, because they don't hear it well. This includes with hearing aids and cochlear implants. If they need extensive therapy in order to learn a language, they obviously do not have full access to it. Deaf children also have limited access to English language concepts (mainly because of the whole phonology problem).

Only 15% of white deaf high school graduates read above a sixth grade level. The numbers are lower for black and Hispanic deaf high school graduates. Hard of hearing children, even with mild to moderate hearing losses, also read below the level of hearing children. Most deaf children with hearing aids and cochlear implants are in that mild to moderate hearing loss group, even worse if they have unilateral hearing (just one ear). We are not talking about ASL-using children, either. These numbers were consistent throughout the years of oral-only deaf education.

Again, deaf children do not have full access to the phonology (sounds) and language (structure and meaning) of spoken English. It doesn't matter what technology they use to hear.

Deaf children born to deaf parents tend to read at a higher level than deaf children born to hearing parents. Why? They have a native language. They are able to develop competence in their native language (which they have full access to), and they are able to apply their language learning skills to written English. But how? ASL and English do not share a phonological system. ASL and English are totally different languages.

Deaf children born to hearing parents typically are not exposed to ASL. If they are exposed to any sign language, it is usually a form Manually Coded English (MCE), such as Signed English or SEE. The problem with this is that exposure to the language is usually poor quality. Parents will typically sign only when directly communicating with the child, so the child misses out on all of the language that a hearing child overhears. That's a lot of language. Also, parents will often mess up their signs if they try to talk and sign at the same time. Another issue is that children may not be exposed to language early enough. Sometimes their parents wait to introduce signing until they "give them a chance" to be learn to speak. If they wait until the child fails to learn to hear well enough to learn spoken English through listening, the child has lost time that really cannot be made up. That child would not attain native proficiency in any language, meaning neither ASL nor English. All of this adds up to a group of children who often do not have the language skills necessary to learn to read.

So... if deaf children do not have enough access to the phonological code of spoken English, and they do not have a firm foundation in the English language, how can they learn to read? How do deaf children with deaf parents do so well, with much fewer interventions?

The first question to ask is: Do deaf children need to learn the phonological code in order to read English? The answer turns out to be no. Counterintuitive, isn't it? Orally trained deaf children in the sixth grade and up were studied (this article quotes at least eight other articles for these data), and the researchers found that they did not actually use phonological information for reading. And here's a kicker: ASL-using deaf college students used English phonological information for rhyming tasks! Some deaf high school students did use English phonology while reading; others did not. And we're talking about good readers. Who did not use or (apparently) need English phonological knowledge.

OK, so phonology may help some kids, but more deaf children learn to read without using phonology. What about the other problem, that deaf children do not typically have age-appropriate spoken English skills? And why would ASL-using deaf children with ASL-using deaf parents read better than deaf children with hearing parents?

One study examined deaf children ages 7 to 15, who were educated using simultaneous communication, meaning an MCE and spoken English at the same time. The deaf children with deaf parents signed ASL at home. The deaf children with hearing parents used spoken language at home. There were no differences between the two groups (deaf of hearing, deaf of deaf) in nonverbal intelligence and speech production. The researchers presented the children with stories and questions about the stories, three different ways: ASL, MCE, and written English. The children could answer the questions any way they wanted (so they could watch an ASL story and answer in MCE, read English and answer in ASL, etc.). On the ASL stories, of course the deaf of deaf group did much better than the deaf of hearing group. On the MCE stories, they were about equal. On the written English stories, the children ages 7-9 did about the same. The deaf of deaf and deaf of hearing all answered about half of the questions correctly. But this changed with age. By the ages of 13-15, the deaf of deaf group answered nearly all of the questions correctly. The deaf of hearing group was still getting about half correct. ASL did not prevent these children from learning to read, and spoken English did not help these children learn to read. They went to the same school, with the same method of instruction. They were equally intelligent and spoke equally well. Their home language was the only difference between the two groups. It looks like ASL helped the deaf children learn English literacy.

So what do we do?

It looks like a strong language foundation is the most important thing--any language. A deaf child does not need to know spoken English in order to read English. This is great for deaf children of deaf parents. They have built-in language dispensers. Deaf children with hearing parents are at a disadvantage, and they will need interventions. They will need early exposure to fluent users of a language they can access. (None of this "wait a year until his implant is activated before laboriously teaching him a language that he will never have full access to.") But look at hearing children who struggle with reading. Learning language is not enough. (I would argue that many of these children have difficulty with language, but that's a topic for another day.)

Children need to learn the mapping/relationship between the language they know and print. It could be the mapping between spoken English and written English. It could be the mapping between ASL and written English. The teaching process seems to be different for hearing and deaf children. One technique that can be used is called "chaining."

Chaining is where you show the printed word, the spelled word, and the sign. Often an initialized sign is also used. The example given is the word "volcano" (this example assumes that the children understand the concept of what a volcano is). Write the word on the board. Fingerspell the word. Sign "volcano" using a V handshape. Sign "volcano" the regular way (C handshape). This is to make it obvious to the children that all of these things (writing, fingerspelling, initialized sign, ASL sign) mean the same thing. Deaf teachers already do this, and hearing teachers should, as well. 

To sum up:

-Children must learn a language before they can learn to read. Deaf children who use ASL are often better readers than deaf children who use MCE or spoken language. Deaf readers often use a visual code rather than sound-based phonology when reading. Spoken phonology is not necessary for deaf children to learn to read. But as deaf children improve reading ability, they seem to improve phonological ability. So phonology does not seem to be dependable as far as reading. Language IS.

-Children cannot learn a first language through print. The printed code leaves out a lot of information that spoken or signed language has. Written language is not interactive. It is not a natural way to learn language (funny, I don't remember the article discussing this, but it's in the summary).

-Children need to be taught to read. Learning to read is different than learning to speak/sign a language. Learning to speak (for hearing) or sign (for deaf) a language is easy. No effort required. Effort is required to learn to read. It must be taught. Chaining is one strategy. We need more strategies.