CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship Repository © 2011 Peter Kirk Crume TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF THE USE OF ASL PHONOLOGICAL INSTRUCTION TO DEVELOP ASL AND ENGLISH LITERACY IN AN ASL/ENGLISH BILINGUAL PRESCHOOL BY PETER KIRK CRUME DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Educational Psychology in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2011 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor Jenny Singleton, Chair Professor Michelle Perry, Contingent Chair Professor Sarah McCarthey Assistant Professor Adrienne Lo Abstract This dissertation study seeks to understand how teachers who work in an ASL/English bilingual educational program for preschool children conceptualize and utilize phonological instruction of American Sign Language (ASL). While instruction that promotes phonological awareness of spoken English is thought to provide educational benefits to young children in terms of language proficiency and reading development, there is limited understanding of how deaf children may similarly benefit from the phonological instruction of ASL. Part of the resistance in promoting ASL may be related to how signs native to ASL do not directly map onto written English in the same way that spoken English does. However, ASL does incorporate the use of the manual alphabet, which is a manual representation of the English alphabet, and many signs in ASL do have partial or full overlap to words in the orthography of English. ASL also has the added benefit of being considered the natural language for deaf people, which allows teachers with the means to promote ASL phonological instruction in ways that allow students to access and utilize a language in ways that can maximize their ability to process information. Data were collected through teacher interviews and a follow-up survey. Interviews were conducted with preschool teachers and ASL specialists to gain insight into how they conceptualize and engage in phonological instruction with their deaf students. Interview questions focused on how teachers used phonological instruction for ASL development and also to enhance the student’s understanding of English. A follow- up survey was sent to the teachers with the intent of corroborating the findings in the interviews and to identify patterns of instruction that were prevalent within the individual ii classes. The analysis was conducted through a grounded theory approach that identified major themes that emerged from the data (Charmaz, 2006; Strauss & Corbin, 1990). iii This dissertation is dedicated to my parents, William and Louise Crume. Thank you for raising me and fostering my interest in the education and development of deaf children iv Acknowledgments First and foremost, I want to thank my advisor, Dr. Jenny Singleton. I am forever indebted to you for your continuous support, patience, advice and positive encouragement throughout my doctoral studies and dissertation. I am very grateful for your knowledge and wisdom related to Deaf education, language and social development, and sign language research. I feel very fortunate to have had a fellow Coda as an advisor! I would also like to thank the committee members on my dissertation, Dr. Michelle Perry, Dr. Sarah McCarthey, and Dr. Adrienne Lo for your feedback and support that helped shape my dissertation. I am also grateful to the participants in my study who took the time and effort to provide me with the insight into how they develop the American Sign Language abilities of their students. I am also thankful for my involvement in the National Science Foundation, Science of Learning Center on Visual Language and Visual Learning (VL2). I am grateful for the student research support from VL2 that I received to cover the expenses related to this dissertation. Thank you also to the students and faculty members of the VL2 for your feedback and support. I feel very fortunate to have been able to participate in the VL2 since its inception and to have the opportunity to interact with individuals from the other Science of Learning Centers throughout my graduate program. I also owe gratitude to Dr. David Quinto-Pozos for teaching me about sign language linguistics and for giving me the opportunity to participate in some of his research studies during his time here at the University of Illinois. Likewise, I am thankful to Dr. Matt Dye for providing me with advice and positive encouragement. I also give special thanks also to my graduate student colleagues at the University of Illinois, v especially to Gabrielle Jones, Travis Wilson, Sarika Mehta, Anjali Forber-Pratt, and Wanette Reynolds, for all of your support and friendship. This acknowledgment would certainly not be complete without thanking my family for all their love, support, and patience throughout this dissertation process. My wife, Kristen Hansen, has been my primary advocate, believer, supporter, and friend throughout this whole process. She sacrificed a lot to give me the opportunity to finish this dissertation and I am forever indebted. I am also grateful to my two daughters, Cayla (age 5) and Samantha (age 2) to allow Dada to finish his “working.” There were many nights that I wished that I could have been with them instead of working of my dissertation and graduate studies. I give thanks to them for teaching me about the process of language development, as they were best role models just by being themselves. I am also very grateful to the deaf students and teachers at the Nyandarua School for the Deaf in North Kinangop, Kenya. They gave me the opportunity to teach at the school for two years, and not a day goes by that I do not think about my time there. I am especially thankful to three teachers on the staff, Michael Kanogu and Nicholas Karuri, for their friendship, support, and guidance; and Caroli Lwanga, who suggested that I pursue a graduate degree in deaf education. It was a simple suggestion that provided a moment of clarity for me when I needed it most, and altered the course of my life. I also give thanks to Dr. David Gabbard and Dr. Vivian Mott, two of the professors in my Master’s program at East Carolina University. Both of them inspired me to believe in myself and excel at a high level. I would never have even considered pursuing doctoral studies without their support, guidance, and friendship. Thank you! vi Last, but certainly, not least, I give thanks to Dr. Scott R. Smith. A true friend in every sense of the word, he treated me as a brother during our college days at East Carolina University. I will never forget the many long hours of conversation we shared over countless late nights as roommates in college, and while I served as his sign language interpreter during his medical school and pediatric residency. Scott taught me what was possible for a deaf person, and piqued my curiosity to the basic question of “How does a signing deaf person read?” This basic question drives me everyday because I learned from him that it is possible for deaf people to read extremely well and succeed academically at a high level using sign language as a primary language of communication. vii Table of Contents List of Tables ................................................................................................................................ ix List of Figures.................................................................................................................................x Chapter One Introduction ............................................................................................................1 Chapter Two Literature Review.................................................................................................14 Chapter Three Methodology.......................................................................................................63 Chapter Four Results ..................................................................................................................83 Chapter Five Discussion and Implications ..............................................................................122 References...................................................................................................................................153 Appendix A Teacher Interview Questions ..............................................................................170 Appendix B Survey Questions ..................................................................................................172 viii List of Tables Table Page 1 Progression of Children’s Phonological Awareness.........................................................19 2 Phases of Word Recognition..............................................................................................21 3 Theorized Progression of ASL Phonological Awareness ..................................................57 4 Proposed Progression of English Word Recognition using ASL Fingerspelling ..............61 5 List of participants in the study..........................................................................................64 6 Summary of philosophical beliefs ......................................................................................84 7 Overview of instructional strategy categories ...................................................................93 8 Sub-category overview: Promoting ASL handshape knowledge .......................................94