Training Literacy Skills through Sign Language

The literacy skills of deaf children generally lag behind those of their hearing peers. The mechanisms of reading in deaf individuals are only just beginning to be unraveled but it seems that native language skills play an important role. In this study 12 deaf pupils (six in grades 1-2 and six in grades 4-6) at a Swedish state primary school for deaf and hard of hearing children were trained on the connection between Swedish Sign Language and written Swedish using a pilot sign language version of the literacy training software program Omega-is. Literacy skills improved substantially across the 20 days of the study. These literacy gains may have rested upon the specific software-based intervention, upon regular classroom activities, or upon a combination of these factors. Omega-is-d, and similar software utilizing sign language as a component, targets an important mechanism supporting reading development in deaf children and could play an important role in bilingual education refinements.