Parents Sharing Books With Young Deaf Children in Spoken English and in BSL: The Common and Diverse Features of Different Language Settings

Twelve parents of young deaf children were recorded sharing books with their deaf child—six from families using British Sign Language (BSL) and six from families using spoken English. Although all families were engaged in sharing books with their deaf child and concerned to promote literacy development, they approached the task differently and had different expectations in terms of outcome. The sign bilingual families concentrated on using the book to promote BSL development, engaging in discussion around the book but without referring to the text, whereas the spoken language families were focused on features of the text and less inclined to use the book to promote wider knowledge. Implications for early intervention and support are drawn from the data. This paper presents the findings of a study into deaf children’s early experiences of literacy at home. The study was a qualitative investigation into early literacy practices of families with deaf children that draws on research that does not take a deficit stance toward deaf children’s literacy but considers its positive features within a developmental paradigm. Our use of the term ‘‘deaf ’’ in this context includes children with moderate to profound hearing loss. The project considers two groups of deaf children, those from sign bilingual homes and those from spoken English homes. The possibility that literacy development for the two groups of deaf children is likely to follow different routes is fundamental to this study because it is likely that different strategies will prove to be facilitative for each group. This has implications for parents and teachers of the deaf 1 interacting with these young deaf children. The study was driven by the continued search for an understanding of how deaf children learn to read and what factors influence their success. In general, deaf children’s standards of literacy remain low, and it is the area of education in which they most significantly underachieve (Luckner, Sebald, Cooney, Young, & Muir, 2005; Powers, Gregory, &