| SignWriting List Archive 1 October 1997 - May 1998 |
January 16, 1998
MESSAGE TO THE SIGNWRITING EMAIL LIST
SUBJECT: Teaching Literacy to Deaf Children
On January 13, 1998, Joe Martin wrote:
>In my Special Education class I am doing reviews of journal
>articles, and I want to know--has anyone anywhere published
any kind of
>study that involved SignWriting? Preferably in teaching literacy
to deaf
>children? There must be something I can write a report on
for these
>people. Help!
>Joe Martin
>n9620132@cc.wwu.edu
Hi Joe!
Thanks for the above message. The area of collecting data on
using SignWriting in Deaf Education is just beginning really.
That is why you do not find many articles in journals at present.
However, there is an excellent 80 page published report from
Denmark in 1985. They taught SignWriting to Deaf children in
the 1980's. This report summarizes their results and is quite
detailed. It is entitled:
UNDERVISNING I TEGNSKRIFT/TEGNSPROG
FORSOGSPROJEKT PAA DOVESKOLEN I RANDERSGADE
INSTRUCTION IN SIGNWRITING/SIGN LANGUAGE
RESEARCH PROJECT AT THE DEAF SCHOOL AT RANDERSGADE
AUTHORS:
Ivan Bentzen
Dietgard Glebke
Inger Kjaer
Bente Sparrevohn
Published by:
Kobenhavns kommunale Skolevaesen Forsogsafdelingen
Copenhagen's School System Research Department
ISBN: 87-7346-145-8
The report is written in Danish and Danish Sign Language. The
teachers state their objectives, discuss the children, show examples
of their work, and then summarize with the results and opinions
from the participants. There are also specific examples of how
they taught SignWriting, what was hard, what was easy, and so
forth.
I will be happy to translate the Danish into English, and publish
the report on our SignWriting Web Site, but first I will write
to the publishers and authors for permission. So hopefully that
will happen in the future.
For right now, I will be happy to email anyone interested a few
excerpted paragraphs from the report, translated into English.
Good luck with your report, Joe -
Valerie :-)