Deaf Children Learning to Spell.

This longitudinal study investigated the spelling development of young deaf children in the context of an integrated process writing classroom. Through the avenue of the writing conference and the examination of writing samples from cumulative writing folders, it was possible to identify and categorize the spelling strategies employed by the deaf writers as print-based, speech-based, and sign-based. The evidence from these data also provided insights into the nature of cognitive processes in the deaf child. I argue that, in the process of learning to spell, deaf children are creatively manipulating the cognitive artifacts society has put at their disposal to reanalyze and redefine their own linguistic systems, to bring them in line with the system that spawned these tools. I further argue that deaf children accomplish this manipulation through a reliance on an inner eye that, while proving efficient for learning to spell, appears to be less effective for learning to read and write.