The 'A' of the word DEAF is fingerspelled in British Sign Language. T A total of 28 of the 50 students had deaf parents, or 56% of the students. The beauty of sign language is that children start talking at very different timelines, but all children can use signs. The study uses a constructivist approach to understand how each of the participants constructs meaning and action through a collaborative effort with the researcher (Charmaz, 2001). What is the range of linguistic and academic abilities of your students with deaf parents and with hearing parents? Oral language skills Students who don’t have the best oral language skills, like many English learners, benefit greatly from the visual aspect of sign language. The prekindergarten and kindergarten classes used more direct instruction of the manual alphabet and emphasized book reading activities more than the preschool class. . I can see this from those years where I taught the letter of the week when the kids were three years old, I really had to repeat myself again and again. The teachers felt that promoting knowledge of sign language structure helped students build a stronger understanding of their native language. Jennifer highlighted this practice in the following excerpt: For example, when we talk about wheels or maybe driving. Seven participants were deaf (six teachers and the ASL specialist) and three participants were hearing. What do you do to bridge ASL to English text? Bonvillian Schick G. R. American Sign Language (ASL) is one of the most widely used languages in the United States, and the fourth-most studied second language at American universities. The teachers felt that providing students with continuous exposure to handshape and movement forms allowed them to see recurring structural patterns that would become more refined as they got older. Hanson The aim of CAEBER is to provide professional development for teachers of the deaf all over the United States in order to promote understanding of bilingual educational theory and principles and in how to apply bilingual principles to ASL/English teaching and learning. Each participant reported that she had between four to seven students with the exception of the ASL specialist, who rotated between all the classes and provided assistance as needed. Elisa described that this was important because it allowed the students to “see it in ASL, and then (look) down at the print on the page. Studies have found that children under the age of two are about 70–80% accurate in their location of signs, followed by about 50% for the movement of signs, and about 25% for their production of handshapes in signs (Bonvillian & Siedlecki, 1996, 2000; Boyes-Braem, 1990; Conlin, Mirus, Mauk, & Meier, 2000; Marentette & Mayberry, 2000; Meier, Mauk, Mirus, & Conlin, 1998; Siedlecki & Bonvillian, 1997). The instructional strategies theme described the approaches that teachers used to build ASL and English literacy skills. This belief was supported by Cathy, a teacher in the second-year preschool class who stated: When I teach throughout the day, I try to make sure that there’s a similar proportion between ASL and English. Little is known about how teachers might promote ASL PA in deaf education or how its use may parallel and contrast with PA used with hearing children. . Miller They’re more physical and benefit from the manual fingerspelling movements—the feel of it. Gerari said Adam Dikana from Hanuabada and Daisy Kotena from Gulf did their grades 3 to 8 in Ted Diro Primary School and they were sitting for the national examinations with other students. Wang As Jennifer stated, “You feel confident when you write. 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