1
How I Develop Better Listening Skills
Barbara Luetke
January 28, 2014
For each student who is D/HH and in my care:
STRATEGY
YES
I advocate for sound treated general ed. classes and trained staff with regard
to synching equipment; it’s use is monitored;
I know and use explicit strategies to develop the assessed, specific listening
skills of each student;
I advocate for placement with TODs (not SPED teachers) when children are
in preschool;
I advocate for 7 years (from the time of equipment obtainment) of
comprehensible, grammatically complete, consistent, coherent input;
I advocate that all students enrolled in gen ed. classes perform within 1-2
years of their hearing peers;
I accept current research that about 50% of children read below grade level
no matter CIs, early ID, oral-education, etc.
I understand that children need receptive and expressive morphemic
awareness (and that bound morphemes are hard to hear) to read on grade
level and decode unknown words;
I team to ensure that students wear the most appropriate assistive listening
equipment for his or her degree of hearing loss;
I know the developmental order of bound morphemes; I use (and expect the
use from students) of the bound morphemes needed to read first grade,
second grade, etc. text;
I understand the value of aligning sign class instruction with authentic
stories (fiction and non-fiction);
I accept that 40 years of research links receptive and expressive ageappropriate English to grade level reading achievement;
When evaluating listening, speaking, and language skills for placement, I
assess morpheme use (prepositions, pronouns, bound morpheme) which are
hard to hear and essential to read on grade level;
I accept that several research studies demonstrate that reading still plateaus
at 4th grade level despite recent advances in Deaf Education;
I advocate that it is easier to hear when class sizes are small and teachers of
the deaf can assist listening development;
I team with parents and professionals to ensure that assistive listening
equipment is worn throughout the day;
I team to ensure the equipment and ear molds are clean, kept dry, and are in
good repair;
I team to build self-esteem for wearing assistive listening equipment;
I can share Facebook sites with parents that support areas of listening, selfesteem, speech, language, etc.
I expect children to learn to clean their equipment and check their batteries;
I advocate that a person is designated to conduct systematic listening checks
at twice a day with younger children and once a day with older students;
that the “Six Sound” (Ling) test is correctly administered and data is kept;
GOAL this YR
2
team members know the signs of faulty equipment, can trouble shoot, and
repairs are made promptly;
I advocate that staff at each child’s placement knows how to connect to
sound field systems for auditorium programs, children theater, etc.;
I have and post audiograms that indicate hearing with the assistive listening
device both on and off for each student and use this information to educate
parents and general education teachers;
I assess the level of listening ability for each student and facilitate
development in classroom routines and lessons throughout the day;
I can give examples of BICS auditory comprehension and CALP auditory
comprehension;
We assess the level of auditory ability of each child and know how to use
this information;
We team to facilitate and track the training of auditory listening abilities;
I advocate for observation during reading instruction (and all lessons) to
evaluate the student’s ability to comprehend;
I do all the steps listed on the “best chance of being heard” slide;
I praise and reinforce emerging listening skills;
I use an FM system and/or sound field system to make classroom
communication from the adults and peers as clear as possible;
I create an environment/situation that helps students to focus on listening
(e.g. expect them to watch, lean closer, tell the child how important it is to
listen, use a signal), etc.
I check comprehension when listening is supported by text;
I ask children auditorialy to distinguish between highly similar words, word
parts, and phrases;
I sometimes say the wrong thing, wrong page number, wrong child’s name,
etc. on purpose to see if children are listening; I reward those who catch me
and correct what I have said;
I make connections between literacy curriculum to assist students to make
vocabulary and grammar connections;
I help children to practice listening by supporting it with speechreading
(e.g., close your eyes, changing my location, using a hoop, etc.;
I use the auditory sandwich (the “filling” being speechreading or
fingerspelling or sign);
I use foreshadowing and confirming to aid listening;
I practice with children to understand basic, routine phrases;
LISTENING TO DIRECTLY SUPPORT READING DEVELOPMENT
I incorporate listening opportunities into daily, routine phrases during
reading lessons (and all academics);
I praise and positively reinforce good listening;
I continually assess who can/can’t comprehend during the essential
components of reading lessons;
I teach phonics directly and incorporate listening practice;
I know and use iPad and iPhone apps to aid listening and reading;
I express my concern in team meetings when students who are D/HH
cannot comprehend oral-only reading instruction, discussion, activities, etc.
and don’t let a year pass without a change in the level of listening support
when students are not reading on grade level.