PIG LATIN & SUCCESS WITH READING
WITH ACCOMMODATIONS FOR STUDENTS WHO ARE DEAF OR HARD OF HEARING
BY
SUZANNE RASCHKE, Constituent Chair, Infants, Toddlers & Preschoolers
December 2014
The DCDD Board members prepare briefs about topics of interest for professionals who serve children and youth
with communication disorders and their families. You are receiving this brief on the topic of resources for
professionals who work with students who are deaf or hard of hearing because you are a member of DCDD. We
appreciate your continued membership with DCDD.
Playing with sounds and practicing rhymes have always been ways to
prepare children for reading. Listening to nursery rhymes at bedtime
and singing silly songs were more commonplace in homes of
yesteryears.
Today children have personal headsets or ear buds listening to their
own music selections and their own audio books and they most likely
own their own electronic device for movies and/or games. Back in
the day before SUVs, were station wagons with no DVD players, and
no CD players or cassette players, and families didn’t have cell
phones, personal handheld game devices, or iPods. What existed in
abundance were family discussions, family singing, games, and
reading. Trips in the car for long vacations were packed full of
language and wordplay games. Children and families read books
and magazines during long drives and played the license plate game,
hangman (pencil and paper), learned and practiced map reading (big
paper maps), had multiple discussions about when they would arrive (“Are we there, yet?”) and estimated miles
travelled, all the while singing silly rhyming songs for their typical car activities. Those road games contributed to
the successful literacy road.
Today’s literacy path looks different – not necessarily bad, just different. I, too, am a happy owner of personal ear
buds for personal music, audiobooks and Korean dramas. I gifted those electronic devices into my family’s
hands. We are all members of this digital age and its current literacy path that I fully embrace.
And yet - one thing we could remember from years bygone, to assist with today’s literacy path, and phonemic
awareness acquisition, is the fun of learning to speak and understand Pig Latin.
Yes, Pig Latin.
Why Pig Latin?
It seems that in the years past more children knew and practiced Pig Latin. When children learned Pig Latin
(most likely from older siblings) they would speak it as a secret language, thinking their parents were unknowing
of it’s meaning. Little did they realize that all who spoke and/or listened to the Pig Latin were practicing important
language skills that benefited reading readiness.
Pig Latin involves phoneme manipulation, which can be considered the highest skill in the phonemic awareness
hierarchy because it requires the prerequisite skills such as phoneme isolation, phoneme segmentation, phoneme
addition, phoneme deletion, and phoneme substitution. And phonemic awareness has been often stated as the
number one indicator of reading success.
How do you speak Pig Latin?
Here’s How:
1. Move the beginning consonant (or consonant blend) to the end of the word and then
add /ay/ to the end of the word.
Example: chair is /air-chay/
2. If the word begins with a vowel you say the word and add /ay/ to the end.
Example: eat is /eat-ay/
There are some variations to this rule. You might see or hear others using /hay/ or /way/ for the ending.
Also, the y in the beginning of a word is usually treated as a consonant.
Example: you is /ou-yay/
The students who have practiced and conquered phonemic awareness skills and are able to crack the code of Pig
Latin are much more likely to grasp the alphabetic code of the English language. Cracking the alphabetic code
opens the door to the wonder of literacy.
Give it a try. (/ive-gay/ /it-ay/ a /y-tray/)
How to accommodate and give access to students who are deaf or hard of hearing?
Here’s How:
In my experience it is not uncommon to see students who are deaf or hard of hearing demonstrating difficulty with
the skill of rhyming. It takes time to develop that skill. Students with hearing loss may also be in need of direct
instruction of language and vocabulary before they can manipulate sounds. Often in instructional books about
phonemic awareness, rhyming is one of the beginning skills in the hierarchy. Jane Fell Greene’s book, Sounds
and Letters for Readers and Spellers: Phonemic Awareness Drills for Teachers and Speech-Language
Pathologists, presents a different hierarchy of skills in a systematic, sequential and multisensory method that I
have found to be successful with students who have hearing loss. The first lessons require repeating/replicating
the phoneme before rhyming and then advancing toward the final skill of Pig Latin.
Suggestions for any phonemic awareness practice with students who are hard of hearing:
1. Use quality auditory input and check for functional listening skills
2. Utilizing multisensory input (see resources)
Suggested practice with students who are Deaf:
1. Use Cued Speech
2. Use Visual Phonics
3. Use a visual alternative of color coding of sounds
RESOURCES and REFERENCES:
Deaf Children Master Reading Using Cued Speech and on Youtube
http://www.wordplays.com/pig-latin
http://www.wikihow.com/Speak-Pig-Latin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7JNAgkhcR0#t=96
Institute for Multi-Sensory Education
Matrix of Multi-Sensory Structured Language Programs
Multisensory Structured Language Programs: Content and Principles of Instruction
National Cued Speech Association
Sounds Abound Multisensory Phonological Awareness by Jill Teachworth, LinguiSystems
Speaking Pig-Latin & Ung by Frost McKee
Phonemic Awareness: An Important Early Step In Learning to Read by ERIC Digest
Phonemic Awareness in Young Children by Marilyn J. Adams, Barbara Foorman, Ingvar Lundberg, Terri Beeler
Pig Latin Word Scrambles by Chris McMullen
Training Phonological Awareness in Kindergarten Level Children
Visual Phonics at the International Communication Learning Institute
LITERATURE CONTAINING PIG LATIN
Arkeepers:Episode One: Keepers by W.J. Madsen
Pig Latin—Not Just for Pigs! #14 (Dragon Slayers’ Academy) by Kate McMullen
First and Fast! * Irstfay andway Astfay!: Little Pat's Story * Ittlelay Atpay's Orystay by Pat Alvarado
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