Paraphrasing questions 3, 4, 5, and 6

3. The National Reading Panel (NRP) has proposed five essential components of a balanced reading instruction. Be able to list and discuss the five components. P.273

According to the NRP, there are five major components that students need in order to be able to learn how to read. These components are phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and text comprehension. The first two components deal with having an insight of the letters and sounds used during pronunciation. Phonemic awareness is necessary when reading. The sounds that people use in communication exist independently of the words formed by the same sounds. Every student must learn to differentiate between words and sounds having the understanding that each sound has its meaning. In addition, sounds are not only found in words, but also in other forms.
On the other hand, phonics helps students to learn the relationship between the letters used in the written language and the sounds used in the spoken language. Therefore, they need to know about the letters formed from the sounds and that each letter has a particular sound. The benefit of understanding phonics is that it helps students know how sounds interrelate in the formation of words. At some instances, letters like vowels may appear the same, but their sounds are different depending on the use.

Fluency, vocabulary, and text comprehension are useful in explaining how letters combine to form words and sentences. Fluency is applicable in combining letters to make fluent words. It ensures that all the sounds making up the words have interrelationships, such that they do not have separate sounds. Vocabulary is a list of defined words used in a certain language. It is important for students to learn the sounds that make certain words, but may remain less helpful if they don’t know their meaning. The steps used in vocabulary are; knowing words, and then the message they portray. Once a student understands phonics and phonetics and then applies the two steps in vocabulary, they acquire the skills of text comprehension. Text comprehension helps students to know how to combine words that portray certain meaning. The message portrayed by the combined words may be different to that of each separate word within a sentence. The key thing is having an insight of the meaning of the sentences formed for them to relay a certain message to the reader.

4. Explain why the acquisition of reading is more difficult for children who are Deaf or hard-of-hearing? (Will need to be specific and state factual information) P.305

A majority of the deaf and hard of hearing students; experience challenges in the five components of learning and reading. Most of them do not show further progress in language from the 4th-grade level. English is not the first language for the deaf since they use a signed language for laying the foundation for language development. Thus, challenges to the use of spoken language are inevitable. There are significant differences between the sign and the spoken languages. For instance, reading takes a different form to that of the signed language. In addition, there are no alphabetical words in the signed language does. Instead, words have particular symbols and meanings that are all different from one another. It is very challenging to have an alphabet for them unlike those using the spoken language. Hearing challenge makes it very hard to know the sounds that make up the words. The only alternative to the problem is learning how to master the movement of the lips when one speaks.

Deaf students have a different way of having an insight of the alphabet. Due to the difficulty in making sounds, learning new words takes a longer time than their counterparts. A greater challenge to the deaf students arises when dealing with a hard text. Their comprehending level has limitations to only the simple words and stories. It is due to the way that they speak and combine words in their signed language that is different from the spoken language. After the fourth grade, the language and inferential demands increase thereby posing challenges to the deaf children. They also lack the cognitive ability to relate things to their correct contexts for easy understanding of the meaning. The introduction to learning a language is essential since it creates variations in the way deaf students learn how to sound and know words. Therefore, many of them shy away from reading. In addition, they have to strive in language reading for them to be effective as their peers. The underlying fact is that deaf students have to know the alphabetical concept for them to read effectively. Thus, they have to embrace it despite the challenges that they have to face.

5. Reading materials beyond third-grade level requires what skills: (pg. 305) you will need to list the skills and explain why those skills are difficult for Deaf and Hard of Hearing students.

The skills and knowledge required in reading materials above third grade are different to that of the lower grades. The two skills are passage specific knowledge and having the knowledge of specific information. Passage specific knowledge requires students to understand the different concepts that are specific to the passage. In addition, students have to understand the message portrayed by the passage through reading and understanding the words in it. When students can effectively know how to sound out words used in a passage, they feel comfortable when reading them. It helps them in making sense of what they read by linking the ideas back to their cognitive development and what they portray in reality. It is always challenging for the deaf students to relate their experiences to what they read. It is because their experiences are different to those of their counterparts using the spoken language. Most of the stories available for use in school have real life experiences, but the same lacks for the deaf students. Their abilities to make inferences from what they read are different. Thus, assuming and having a clear picture of the readings is a challenge to most of them especially when the meaning is not vivid. They have limitations in understanding the meaning of the stories they read due to the lack of real experiences like the group using the spoken language.

Students also require having the knowledge of the specific information portrayed in a passage as the second skill. It is essential that students understand specific details derived from the broad passage. It helps in narrowing down to a specific idea other than concentrating on the whole issue. Students require knowing the words that make up a story for them to understand it in whole. It does not matter, whether one reads it or not, because the failure of understanding the words make it difficult to understand the whole story. It is challenging for the deaf students since they do not easily understand the words for lack of life experiences and knowledge. For the deaf students, combining the specific topics that make up a story is hard. Due to the lack of adequate information about the topic at hand, they find it hard to understand the story, and the difficulty in understanding the words used aggravates it further. The only way of getting most out of a story is seeking for additional ways of gaining the information. The deaf students have to translate everything to the sign language for easy understanding of the concepts discussed.

6. List and describe the five stages of writing. Explain why it is difficult for Deaf and Hard of Hearing students acquire the English written language. P.330

Planning, composing, revising, editing and formal sharing are the five main stages in writing.
The first stage is planning which involves proposing a topic and strategizing on how to write about it. The key consideration in planning is the writing style to use and the selection of the main issues to discuss the topic.

The next step involves composing. It is the preliminary stages of beginning to write. Thus, the student can develop a rough draft that will form the basis for the other work. The rough draft will only serve as a guideline to the other sections.

Next is the revising stage. The student has to have the assurance that the work written will portray the intended meaning to the audience. The information presented has to be relevant to the topic and substantive.

Editing is the next step, and it ensures that the work is devoid of errors. Among the issues checked is the grammatical errors and fluency in the ideas.

Formal sharing comes after the writer validates the work; and ensures that it can serve as a source of information to others.

Deaf students face a lot of challenges in writing because they have to apply a skill that they are not conversant. Speaking and writing are interrelated, but the deaf use the sign language other than the spoken language. It is challenging for the deaf since the words used in writing are not the same as what they use in their sign language. The design of the sign language is different to the spoken language. The issues of composing sentences by combining words are difficult and full of grammatical errors for the deaf students.

For the deaf students to write, they have first to relate their sign language with the words found in the alphabet. The alphabet is not a common tool in the sign language, hence challenging. They have to incorporate a lot of reasoning before they write since they have to remember extra words than those used when speaking. In addition, combining the words to form meaningful sentences is a challenge for them. Therefore, most of the work they produce after writing is not easy to understand due to the many challenges. It cannot clearly portray the intended meaning, hence finds it hard to share the work with others.