Early Childhood Education Commons^™

Developing Language And (Pre)Literacyskills In Deaf Preschoolers Through Shared Reading Activities With Bimodal-Bilingual Ebooks, Gene Mirus, Donna Jo Napoli

Journal of Multilingual Education Research

Encouraging relaxed and playful interaction over stories naturally fosters language interaction and both preliteracy [hereafter (pre)literacy skills] and literacy without anxiety. Reading for pleasure is valuable for young hearing children – we know that, it is among the most beloved family rituals. In this article we argue that reading for pleasure needs to be recognized as valuable for young deaf children and needs to become a beloved family ritual for them, as well. One way to achieve this is to read ebooks to deaf children in order to advance their communication and other (pre)literacy skills. An exploration of these types …