Communities of Practice: Literacy and Deaf Children

This article aims to discuss young deaf children's access to literacy within a sociocultural perspective. We introduce the concept of communities of practice as an aspect in early literacy development for young deaf children. Preschools are learning communities and thus constitute communities of practice. Our discussion on the use of communities of practice is based on a study of literacy practices in preschools with deaf and hearing children. The findings revealed that deaf children did not have adequate access to significant literacy events during preschool activities. We will argue that with regard to developing literacy, more attention should be given to the importance of participation, interaction and regularity for deaf children in these communities of practice.