ROUGH EDITED COPY
EHDI
BECKHAM
ENCOURAGING EARLY LITERACY THROUGH
READING TO CHILDREN WITH HEARING LOSS
PRESENTERS: KAREN AGUILAR AND SHERI COOK
3/10/15
3:45-4:15 P.M. ET
REMOTE CART/CAPTIONING PROVIDED BY:
ALTERNATIVE COMMUNICATION SERVICES, LLC
PO BOX 278
LOMBARD, IL 60148
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acscaptions.com
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(This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime
Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and
may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.)
>> We're ready to start. We're here for "Encouraging Early Literacy Through Reading to
Children with Hearing Loss." My name is Rebecca, I'm the moderator. If you'll make
sure I get your evaluation forms at the end of the session.
[ speaker is off microphone ]
>> KAREN AGUILAR: Can everybody hear me okay? Wonderful!
Thank you for staying this late in the afternoon. Thank you for coming to the session.
My name is Karen Aguilar and what I'm going to do is take you through the beginnings
of creating a program and then I'm going to turn the floor over to Sherri to talk a little
about the program and she's going to read a story to you. So you can see how she
reads the story to children who are deaf and hard of hearing. I was kind of a funky
background, but the background I have related to this is I created a center-based early
intervention program for children who are deaf and hard of hearing and panel after
panel, parent after parent, and presenter after presenter that I brought in to speak to the
parents that I work with, everybody said, without fail, read to deaf and hard of hearing
children. it didn't matter the type of hearing loss, amplification or no amplification, if they
were deaf-blind, if they signed, cued, oral, whatever was going on with the child, without
fail, read to the deaf child.
The parents that I worked with, many of them, when they got the diagnosis of their child
with hearing loss didn't read to their child. And it was more common within the Spanish
speaking community. Not only when they had children with a hearing loss, my husband
is Mexican. Whenever I visit his family in Mexico, there were just not books in the
home. I don't know if it was a cultural thing. He wasn't read to at a very young age, but
a lot of the families I work with who are Spanish speaking just didn't have books in their
home. So we had to work extra hard with those families to make sure they were
reading to children with hearing loss. So I knew that one thing I wanted to create was
some type of an environment where we were reading to children who were deaf and
hard of hearing not only as early interventionists, but teaching parents to read to their
children as well. So that's kind of the reason why this is so passionate to me and why I
pulled Sheri along on the journey.
The coalition that I worked for before my current job is called CHOICES for parents, and
at the state wide coalition of parents and professionals that make sure parents have the
support they need, the advocacy they need, the resources, and all of that good stuff so
that they can basically raise a child who I consider successful and success means so
many different things, but that's basically our mission. It is -- it sits under a larger
organization called the Chicago Hearing Society that I now work for. You can go to our
website. I'm not going to spend a lot of time explaining the actual program, but what
happened is that the American Library Association has a conference every two years,
and at the end of the conference, all the exhibitors would, at the end of the show, have
all their books on display and because they didn't want to spend money sending their
money back to the state that they basically lived in or the publisher came from, they
would just leave their books at the edge of the booth. And all of the union guys would
come and basically pitch the books or put them in their cars and take them home. So I
approached the American Library Association and I said, can we somehow come to
some type of a partnership or agreement that if I come to your show that I can meet with
each exhibitor individually, will you let me on the floor, and if I talk to each one of them,
can we become the non-profit organization that you give the books to at the end of
every show? So we tried it one year and at the end of the show I got pallets of books.
Now I had to then -- I didn't think very clearly, but, okay, now I have to get the books
back to Chicago. So then I went to their union guys and figured out a way to get the
books back to Chicago, which I figured out after the fact. Then I thought -- I wasn't
thinking very clearly again. I have to open all the boxes of books, sort them by age
group and stamp them with a stamp that says this was donated by CHOICES for
parents. Then I have to sort by age group and get them to schools and read to the kids
and so forth, figure out the next steps. Which I figured out slowly over the years how to
do this better. But that's the kind of basis of the program. Get to the American Library
Association show, meet with each exhibitor. Some shows have 10,000 people who
attend and some have 25,000 people that attend, but 450 exhibitors every year at each
show. Some have children's books and some adult books not appropriate for kids but
basically that's what I do twice a year, because of this agreement with the American
Library Association. Sometimes we get a lot of kids books, sometimes we don't get tons
of kids’ books. It depends on the exhibitors and what they bring to the show. But as a
result of that I then have these books. These are some of the sponsors of the last
READ Program we did. These are some of the volunteers who helped sort books.
These are some facts that you guys know, I'm sure. This is the last time we did the
READ Program. I was able to get sponsors this last time around so each kid got a
backpack with their books. We started by targeting Chicago public schools because I
thought this was the largest group of kids, low income kids, again, who didn't have
access to books. Their parents weren't buying books, a lot of Spanish speaking families
were in Chicago public schools. I put our information in the backpacks. Again, we
would go in the schools and read the books and then give them some information so
they could come back to us and get some parent support as well. So that's the gist of
the program. Any questions about the program?
Okay, great. I'm going to turn it over to... .
>> SHERI COOK: Okay, hello, everyone. I'm Sheri Cook, and I work for the director at
the Gallaudet regional center western states, I cover 15 states. The red states, the
midwest, just 13 states. And Kentucky is one of my states. Which I love. What I do is
share information and resources from Gallaudet and the Clerc Center through the states
that I cover, urban or rural. I love meeting people. It's a wonderful, wonderful job.
We started partnering a few years ago and realized that each backpack could be filled
with books from the Clerc Center. There were 12 reading tips for parents. We want to
include that in the backpack. It is written in both Spanish and English. When I visit the
schools, just this past fall was the first time I invited some parents to sit in while I was
doing the storytelling. So the parents could see how I was reading to the children. So
the parents now have this template of 15 -- 12 tips, but they don't know how to read to
their child, so we had the idea of having them come to watch me read to their child, so
hopefully it would make more sense. We also have an adult role model for the
education of the deaf. Sometimes I will be called to visit schools as a role model for
deaf kids. And I really love that program. I wish every state had that. If you're not
familiar with the 15 principles for reading to deaf children, you can go to the website,
Gallaudet University -- www.gallaudet.edu and do a search for 15 principles for reading
to deaf children.
We don't only have the information in print English. We also have videos in American
Sign Language. And in Spanish.
Unfortunately, we don't have time today to go through each of the tips, so I'll just
highlight a few. When I visit a school, I first ask the teacher the communication style
that is used at the school. Let me take my name tag off. Just a moment.
Some schools prefer I sign only. Others prefer I speak only and some prefer I speak
and sign at the same time. I'm not there to argue. My philosophy is to meet the needs
of the children in each of the schools. No matter what their communication needs are. I
was raised orally and I can communicate on any part of the spectrum. I know that some
kids benefit greatly from that auditory stimulation and exposure. I will sign and speak at
the same time depending. I know some may disagree with that philosophy, but, again, I
just make sure I'm there for the kids and that they can understand me. I'm going to be
giving you an example of how I typically do read a story to the children when I visit their
school.
One of the 15 tips is: Make reading fun. And I'll show you what I do to make it fun. I
don't just read the book. I will visit ages preschool up until middle school. Actually,
before I became a director, I was also a teacher of the deaf. I used to teach at the
Wisconsin School K through middle school. I love teaching. And I love to read and
story-tell. I'm a little bit of a drama queen, truth be told. Just a little.
So acting makes fun out of reading. So if you're a good actor, you're going to be a great
storyteller. I bring props. Costumes. It's not just reading a book. It's bringing that book
to life. When I was a teacher, I remember I would stay after school and think about,
how could I teach that concept? And I would get everything that I could and put it in my
toolkit from home, from the library, wherever I could grab resources to make it come to
life.
For third through eighth grade, sometimes I would be reading to that whole age range at
the same time. Or kindergarten through fifth grade, all at the same time. It was a pretty
big challenge to find a book that would be interesting to all of them. So I'm going to
show you how I read a book. I'm going to move over here. When I come into the
classroom, I will bring my book bag. We have a box ready with the kids' free backpacks
with books and I will go in and say, hi, introduce myself as a person who is deaf. They
want to check out my hearing aid and I let them do it. I ask them why I'm here and their
response is, you're here to read to us. And then we go into the reasons why we read
books. Most kids say, well, because we have to. School makes us. Then I'll ask the
kids if they play sports. And I get their attention with that question. And I ask them, why
do you play basketball or soccer or football? They say, for fun! And I ask other reasons
why and they say it makes them stronger, because they're exercising, and then I ask
them again, why do we read? And they said, for fun? And I said, yes. Your brain is a
muscle. If you're home all day playing video games or watching TV all day, what
happens to your brain? It gets a little weak. And you build a strong brain by reading.
Reading makes you smarter. I have a nice house and I have a nice car, and then I had
to work really hard to get those things. I have to have a good job to get those things.
And I told them that I had to go to school in order to get what I had. Because I read and
because I did learn in school I was able to be in the position that I was. So I talked to
them about how reading is fun and how strong it makes your mind and how smart you
can be if you read. We have a great discussion all together before I even start reading
the book. I tell them that I love to read, and I ask them if they can guess which books I
like. So they all throw out different answers that they think I might like books about
vampires or rockets. And I show them the books that I have. I am an animal lover and
usually I pick those books because that is fascinating to all age groups. If I'm reading
third through eighth or kindergarten through fifth, some topics aren't appropriate for the
younger kids or they might be boring for the older kids. If I find a book about animals,
it's usually universally enjoyed.
For the third through eighth grade group, maybe you've seen this book. I use this book
when I read to them.
It says, Ivan remarkably true story about a shopping mall gorilla.
So I show them the title, which kind of gets them off guard. Remember, I'm a drama
queen and I say, look at the title! Something is wrong with that title. What do you see
that is wrong with that title?
And I ask the students what a shopping mall is? And they say, you know, where all the
stores are. And I ask them if they go, and of course they do. So they have background
knowledge on what a mall is and I'm wanting to make sure we have a common or
shared knowledge of what a shopping mall is. And I ask them if they live at the
shopping mall? I get a resounding "no" in response. And then I say, how can this
gorilla live in the shopping mall?
We talk about where gorillas live. I bring a map, just have to hold it. I bring this map.
And I ask the children where gorillas come from. A lot of the kids K-8 will say, they're
from Africa. Many kids at that age range are taking geography classes. I read the story
and most of the pictures are-I mean, most of the book is illustrated. I talk to them about
the story of Ivan and for 20 years he lived in a cage alone. He was brought to the
United States and lived in Washington and he was in a pet shop.
People started noticing he was angry and acting out, so finally he was put in a zoo in
Atlanta. So I give the students the background information and then I made my own
book with real pictures of Ivan. Sometimes drawings or illustrations aren't enough to
really get the message across. I'll show them YouTube videos and actual pictures of
Ivan, where he moved, how he moved from Washington to Atlanta, so they can have a
real idea of who Ivan is. That's a great story for kindergarten through fifth and third
through eighth. It's quite touching for any age group. From there I moved to reading
the story.
Then I read them another story. I talk to them about service dogs. I can't bring an
actual service dog, so I use my iPad to show them what different service dogs do.
There's one book called Tuesday Does Me In -- Tucks Me In, and it's about a war
veteran who comes home and has a service dog. So we do talk about that. And what
his service dog needs. Here is a picture of a soldier with a service dog.
So I can show them a picture of how a service animal can help someone in a store,
someone who is blind and various different situations where service dogs work. So we
have a discussion first. We give them that true knowledge, that background knowledge,
free teaching about what we're going to be learning and then I read the book.
So for Duck in the Trunk, there's several animals that show up in the book. And if I'm
reading K through 5, I might talk to them about different animals, some that are raised
on a farm, some that are raised in the forest. So we'll set out the forest and set out the
farm. I've got a bunch of kids in front of me and I act dumb. I say, I need your help.
Please show me where each animal fits. Do they live in a forest or on a farm? And I'll
show them a deer. I make sure that I have the printed word or label on the picture. And
purposefully I will make mistakes. I'll say deer is at the farm, and I'll put it at the farm. A
lot of times deaf children are taught to agree with whatever they're told. Not think
critically. I want them to think critically and catch me when I'm making mistakes and
correct me. Chickens and roosters, many of the kids might have a cochlear implant or a
hearing aid and I might ask them the sound that a chicken sounds or a rooster makes,
and they like to have the connection of the sounds. This book has a lot of rhyming.
Duck in the Truck, obviously that's the title.
They will help me separate the animals based on where they live. I take a good 15
minutes to do this pre-activity, and then the last two words in the story are "push" and
"pull." So we'll talk about the meaning of those words and I'll ask them to remember
that when it comes time. I read the story. I do read the story using simcom. I'm not
here to discuss the philosophies of communication. I ask the cool what language or
communication -- I ask the school what language or communication mode they use and
try to be accurate when I read.
I'm going to turn off my hearing aids and read -- oh, turn on my hearing aids and read
this story.
Do you mind holding the book for me, please, Karen? So this is for four and five-yearolds, okay?
Does anyone want an interpreter, because I'm going to simcom. if you don't want
information via simcom, I have an interpreter. It's quite a challenge. I'm in the hot seat.
I've got to make myself look good.
>> Hello? Hello? Can you hear me now?
Okay.
I'm deaf, don't you know?
Okay. There's a duck in a truck. Vrooom-Vroom.
[chuckles]
Uh-oh, I ask the kids, what's wrong? Before I tell them what is happening. I want them
to look and see what is happening.
Stuck! Stuck in the muck!
You see? I'm using English and ASL. You can separate them, you can, just a little
creativity involved.
Wah-wah-wah... he's mad. What is he going to do? How is he going to get out of the
muck? How!?
What is this?
It's a frog. Ribbit. Where is he from? The forest or farm? Which? The forest!
Well, they decided to -- what is that word? Push. So everybody help me, come on,
boys and girls, push! Push!
You're not pushing.
[chuckles]
Push!
Push!
Is it going to work? Is he going to get out? Let's see!
Oh, he's so stuck in the muck. Oh, there's a sheep. He's driving a Jeep. VroomVroom.
What should the duck do? What should he do? If you need help, what do you do?
What do you do, Carla? What do you do?
>> Call 911.
>> Maybe the duck should ask for help. How do you ask? How do you ask?
>> On the phone?
>> But the sheep is there. So maybe, hey, please, can you help push duck? Do you
think the sheep will help? Will he? Let's hope. Let's see.
The sheep is thinking. Get outta here!
He can't turn around. Maybe the sheep should help. So what are they going to do?
What are they going to do? Yes, let's do it. Push! Everybody come on! Push! Push!
Will it work?
Will it work?
Let's see. Let's see!
No, it doesn't work.
Somebody is in a boat. Who is in a boat? Who is in the boat?
A goat is in the boat.
Right, and he's... vrooo...
And he hears and sees. And the duck and the frog and the sheep are...
Hmm...
Let's look at the picture. Look!
There's a rope. The truck. The goat brought a rope.
What is he going to do? What are they going to do? What do they do? Maybe he's
going to pull. So come on, let's help. Let's pull. Pull!
Will it help? Let's see!
Vroom-vroom...
Yes! Yes!
The truck is free!
Yes!
And the duck takes off. What happened?
The goat, the frog and the sheep, now they're stuck in the muck. Ah, the duck forgot to
do something. What did the duck forget to do?
He forgot to say "thank you." Should he have said "thank you"?
Yeah, if somebody helped you, you say "thank you." Yeah.
I think the duck... vrooo... oh, turn and the back.
So just give you an idea of how I use simcom when I come in, whether I turn on my
voice or oral, I bring props. One story about the three little pigs, the different kinds of
three little pigs story. I bring in props, food, costumes, make it fun. Let the kids become
excited about reading. Be creative. So thank you.