Los Angeles, Calif., August 8, 2013 – A unique 3-week summer pilot program called Read to Succeed was recently introduced by the House Research Institute’s Children’s Auditory Research and Evaluation (CARE) Center for preschool age children with hearing loss who come from Spanish-speaking homes, and their parents.
Recognizing a gap in literacy development in deaf and severely hard-of-hearing preschoolers from homes where English is a second language, CARE Center clinicians developed the Read to Succeed program. The CARE Center team hypothesizes that by providing a short but intense cycle of literacy-focused intervention, the children will benefit with respect to multiple measures of literacy skill development. With this premise, they designed as a research study an intensive 3-week program for the children, along with a parental education component.
The long-term objective is to develop interventions to better prepare preschoolers with hearing loss, particularly those from non-English speaking homes, for success in mainstream schools.
A total of 17 children participated in the summer pilot program, and ranged in age from 4 to 7. By the close of week 3, transformations were clearly evident. Children demonstrated an increased desire to read and write. Parents demonstrated an increase in encouraging their children to read and write, and a shared enthusiasm for their progress.
“Read to Succeed fosters development of emergent literacy skills and knowledge of print and word concepts, phonological awareness, and early comprehension skills,” said Debra Kay Schrader, educational liaison, HRI’s CARE Center, who spearheaded the program with significant support from her colleague Dianne Hammes-Ganguly, MA CCC-SLP, among other CARE Center staff members. “It is based on the concept that when high quality, balanced instruction is provided by trained teachers and combined with an increase in the parents’ understanding of the critical importance of early shared-book-reading experiences, it can make a significant impact on a child’s literacy skill development, overall quality of life and future success.”
In the pilot program, daily lessons used phonological awareness (PA), concepts of print and word knowledge, and reading comprehension, delivered by a team of teachers of the deaf and hard of hearing and listening and spoken language specialists. After reviewing the children's abilities based on pre-program assessments, the instructors engaged them in shared writing, shared reading, a comprehension mini lesson, an interactive 3-day read aloud experience, dialogic reading guided one-on-one, and small group phonological awareness training. This instruction was based on the overall needs of the groups of children placed with a teacher. The children were then re-grouped after a 4-day teaching cycle in PA.
Parents of the enrolled children participated in their own educational sessions to help them identify the importance of early reading experiences and learn key strategies for development of reading skills.
“The results of the pilot program provide valuable information to us as we strive to improve how we support the reading and literacy skill development of today’s children with hearing loss,” said Schrader.
About the House Research Institute and its CARE Center
House Research Institute is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to improving the quality of life for people with hearing loss and related disorders through scientific research, patient care and the sharing of knowledge. Institute scientists research the auditory system, at the level of function, as well as at the cellular, molecular and genetic levels. We also explore the neurological interactions between the auditory system and brain, and study ways to improve auditory implants, diagnostics, clinical treatments and intervention methods. We share our knowledge with the scientific and medical communities as well as the general public through its education and outreach programs.
The Children's Auditory Research and Evaluation (CARE) Center at the House Research Institute (HRI) in Los Angeles is a pediatric audiology center devoted to improving the communication ability of infants and children with auditory disorders through research, clinical services, and education of professionals and families.
For more information, please call (800) 388-8612 or (213) 483-4431, e-mail info@houseresearch.org or visit www.houseresearchinstitute.org.
