Storybook selection criteria used by teachers of d/Deaf and hard-of-hearing prereaders communicating in English

For d/Deaf and hard-of-hearing prereaders who communicate predominately in spoken and/or signed English (DHH-English), Teachers of the d/Deaf (TODs) read books aloud to increase English skills, auditory-verbal comprehension, sequencing skills, verbal reasoning, background knowledge, and sight word recognition. Teachers struggle to select appropriate books for read alouds. Unfortunately, the only available book selection system for TODs serving DHH-English was developed for a different purpose than identifying storybooks to increase English skills and was based on a methodology difficult to evaluate. To help teachers select books, we created an empirically-derived difficulty-level system based on the judgments of 69 experienced TODs serving DHH-English preschoolers and kindergartener across the United States. We used 14 storybooks and asked the TODs to group these books and order these groups based on how difficult the storybooks would be for DHH-English prereaders to understand when the books were read aloud. Additionally, TODs described the groups they created and why they assigned the books in their groups. We used these descriptions in a content analysis to derive a glossary of book characteristics. Finally, we analysed these results with a multivariate technique that simultaneously analysed the glossary and ranking data to create a difficulty-level scale and to identify exemplar books. The book selection system includes a two-tiered glossary, a six-point difficulty-level scale and exemplar books for each scale level. We discuss how this empirically-derived book selection system for read alouds with DHH-English prereaders can be paired with the three existing evidence-based read-aloud interventions designed to increase oral language skills.