Keys to English Print:

As published in Odyssey, Fall 2003
Phonemic Awareness through Immersion in Cued American English in PDF (20 pages, 607 kb)

Phonemic Awareness through Immersion in Cued American English

By Kitri Larson Kyllo

The Intermediate School District 917 Program for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Learners, a regional bilingual program in the south/southeast metro area of Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota, develops English phonemic awareness and literacy through language instruction and immersion in cued American English. Access to American Sign Language and cued American English is provided through exposure to each language in different activities or settings. The determination of the language(s) of instruction occurs through the process of developing the child’s Individualized Education Program or the Individualized Family Service Plan. A more in-depth description of our program’s development, framework, program practices, and bilingual considerations is articulated in our Language of Instruction document (1997), as well as in articles by Kyllo and Doenges (2001) and Crain and Kyllo (2003).

We believe that the use of cued American English in an immersion model:

• provides the most visually complete access to the language of English in conversation,
  
• develops phonemic awareness and decoding skills, and
  
• results in high literacy levels in learners who are deaf or hard of hearing.

We likewise believe that immersion in American Sign Language to achieve proficiency in
that language is critical to the development and social/emotional well-being of learners
who are deaf or hard of hearing.

Clarissa Felixberger, 2nd grade, describes a block design using cued American English. In other educational activities, below, she uses American Sign Language. Both cued American English and American Sign Language communication are used in the Minnesota District 917 program. Photos courtesy of Kitri Kyllo.

Cued American English is a visual and linguistically complete medium to convey the language of English. It incorporates the visually discrete features of Cued Speech designed by Dr. R. Orin Cornett in 1966, including handshape, hand placement, movement, and mouthshape, and combines them with prosodic information conveyed via visually discrete non-manual features, such as head-thrust and brow movement, to convey the linguistic features of American English (Fleetwood & Metzger, 1998a; 1998b). Cued American English provides learners with varying degrees of hearing full access to the phonemes of English in natural discourse through vision.

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Our program’s practice of using cued American English to convey English is grounded in the belief that its use enables deaf and hard of hearing children to acquire an internalized mastery of English at the phonological level. This is necessary in order to acquire:

• the ability to decode the printed form of English, i.e., the letter-phoneme code, for reading; and
• the ability to encode the written form of English, i.e., the printed letter-phoneme code, for writing.

We believe deaf and hard of hearing learners can be bilingual in American Sign Language and English when provided the following components:

• access to adult language models who are fluent in American Sign Language and models fluent in cued American English,
• immersion in both American Sign Language and English via cued American English, and
• maximized language learning opportunities through both school and parent participation in a commitment to unambiguous language immersion in all settings (Kyllo & Doenges, 2001; Intermediate District 917 Program for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Learners, 1997).

Phonemic Awareness:
Critical Skill for Reading and Writing

“Over the last two decades, phonological awareness, along with letter-sound knowledge, has been shown to be a strong predictor for the development of early decoding skills. It is…the ability to segment words into individual phonemes, that seems to best predict students’ reading abilities” (Apel & Swank, 1999). Additional research has identified early phonological awareness as a predictor of early print decoding ability (Ehri & Robbins, 1992) and early reading comprehension ability (Bradley & Bryant, 1983). The National Reading Panel likewise identified phonemic awareness as one of five key skills required to become a skilled and fluent reader in addition to the skills of phonics, vocabulary, fluency, and text comprehension (Armbruster, Lehr, & Osborn, 2001). A recent study of the reading abilities (Dyer, MacSweeney, Szczerbinski, Green, & Campbell, 2003,) identified tasks related to phonemic awareness and decoding as the best correlates of reading for the deaf students participating in the study.

Audition, Signs: Insufficient Access to English

The challenge for teachers of learners who are deaf or hard of hearing is how to provide an environment that promotes phonemic awareness. Hearing children are able to access the phonemes of a spoken language via the auditory channel through the medium of speech. For children who are deaf or hard of hearing, the auditory signal is absent or degraded and thus access to the phonemes of English via the auditory channel is absent or unreliable.

Manually coded signed English systems, while developed with the intention of making the English language visually accessible to learners who are deaf or hard of hearing, do not convey English at the phonological level, i.e., they do not convey the basic building block units of the language– consonants and vowels. Moreover, these systems convey English deficiently at the morphological and syntactic levels (Fleetwood & Metzger, 1998a). Deaf and hearing children who are instructed in signed approximations of English are denied access to the phonemes of English in natural discourse.

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Cued American English:
Visual Access to English Phonology

Cued American English, however, provides complete visual access to the phonemes of traditionally spoken English in natural discourse, as well as information at all other levels of the linguistic hierarchy of English. Karen Stene Doenges, speech/language pathologist in the Intermediate School District 917 Program for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Learners, provides the following explanation:

Phonemes have historically been defined as acoustic events, i.e., the ‘sounds’ of a language, or simply, ‘speech sounds.’ The dictionary (Webster, 1984) defines a phoneme as ‘one of the set of the smallest units of speech, as the ‘m’ of ‘mat’ and the ‘b’ of ‘bat’ in English, that distinguishes one utterance from another in a given language.’

Cueing changes the way we define English phonemes. Phonemes remain the smallest unit of English that distinguishes one word from another, i.e., the consonant and vowel building blocks, but they no longer need be defined by acoustic characteristics or tied to the speech sounds of the language. Through cueing, the phonemes of English become a purely visual event. Cueing allows the deaf child full access to the phonemic code of English through vision alone. As a result, the way we define phonemes must change. English phonemes can be conveyed acoustically through speech or they can be conveyed visually through cueing. (2001, p. 1)

Support in Research

A growing body of research on Cued Speech and cued language is corroborating anecdotal findings that children with early exposure to cueing develop phonological awareness abilities on par with hearing peers (Leybaert & Charlier, 1996; Charlier & Leybaert, 2000; LaSasso, Crain, & Leybaert, 2003). Metzger (2002) cites additional research on the use of cued English, cued French, and cued Thai that focused on prosody, language acquisition, and bilingualism. Other research has focused on literacy development (Metzger, 2002; Leybaert, 1993; Leybaert & Charlier, 1996).

Because the alphabet we use to read and write English uses letters to represent the phonemes of the language (unlike Chinese, which uses characters to represent whole words), knowledge of those phonemes is extremely valuable to readers and writers of English because it helps them learn the printed consonant-vowel code (letter symbols) by matching that code to the internalized consonant-vowel code they already know via cued English.…Cued English represents the phonemes of English in a purely visual way with no ambiguity, so children who are deaf and hard of hearing exposed to cueing consistently have complete, visual access to the phonemes of English. The 6-year-old deaf child who has been cued to for several years through natural discourse has figured out the phonemic code of English through unambiguous visual access just as a hearing child figures out the phonemic code through unambiguous auditory access. This means the deaf child exposed to cued English consistently can come to the task of learning to read and write with a level of phonemic awareness that is equivalent to that of a hearing child’s. (Doenges, 2001, p. 2.)

Using the system of Cued Speech to convey English allows the deaf or hard of hearing learner full, unambiguous access to the phonemic structure of English via a sensory channel that is not impaired, i.e., vision. It provides the learner with little or no residual hearing equal access to the phonology of the language.

Critical for Reading

Tessa’s Spontaneous Writing, 1999 This example of Tessa’s 2nd grade written language indicates limited knowledge of English.

Hearing children use their auditory memory to learn which sounds (auditory phonemes) should be associated with which symbols (printed letters), which then enables them to“sound out” a printed word. ‘Cue kids’ use their visual memory …to learn which visual phonemes to associate with which printed letters… This [phonemic] knowledge…allows the hearing child to ‘sound out’ printed words and it allows the deaf child to ‘cue out’ a printed word. The decoding process is the same, but accessed by different senses and memories…(Doenges, 2001, p. 3).

Critical for Writing

The cueing child’s knowledge of the phonemic structure of language also impacts his or her learning to write. Knowledge of visual phonemes results in the deaf or hard of hearing child’s ability to write phonetically, sometimes making the same phonetic mistakes that hearing children make. Phonetically based spelling, often referred to by teachers as “invented spelling,” is based on the child’s knowledge of the phonemes. Phonetic spelling, such as noz for nose and luv for love, may be incorrect but it is viewed among reading teachers as desirable because it shows that the child has broken the code of letter-phoneme associations.

The written English of learners immersed in cued English reflects the language they already know. Their written English is 1) phonemically based, 2) semantically correct, i.e., uses appropriate vocabulary, 3) syntactically correct, i.e., uses correct word order and sentence structure, 4) correct in use of word endings, and 5) idiomatic, appearing natural, not stilted or formal (Doenges, 2001, p. 6).

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Natural Acquisition is Key to Mastery

A language comprises much more than its phonemic building blocks. The manner in which those units are constructed and conveyed determines meaning. Doenges (2001) writes, “There is little value in decoding the word ‘coat’ into the phonemes of /k/ /o/ /t/ if one does not recognize the phonological unit /kot/ as carrying linguistic meaning. Likewise, there is little value in being able to decode the sentence, The private eye was talked into it by his fellow sleuths, if one does not understand the vocabulary, grammatical construction, and figurative language contained therein.”

Tessa’s Spontaneous Writing, 2002 This example of Tessa’s 5th grade writing reflects the growth in her knowledge of English.

Children who are deaf or hard of hearing have historically been exposed to English vocabulary, syntax, and figurative language through direct teaching efforts during their school years, whereby print has been used in an attempt to make the precise English words and word endings clear. The critical question is: “Do we learn a language effectively when the only exposure to an unambiguous representation of the language is provided through print?

We know that hearing children typically bring an internalized knowledge of the language of English to the task of reading. Children who are deaf or hard of hearing typically do not. Whereas the skills hearing children bring to the reading and writing task in the areas of English syntax, English vocabulary, English figurative language, English phonology, English letter/sound association, and inference skills are typically well developed by the time they enter the early elementary years, the skills of children who are deaf or hard of hearing are typically limited.

For students exposed to sign systems, reading is a process of trying to match sight words with signs in their sign vocabulary. This sight-word approach is used to unravel the words on the page that represent a language of which these learners only have minimum or partial knowledge. These learners are expected to learn to read English and to learn the language of English simultaneously.

Deaf and hard of hearing children who are immersed in English via cued English, on the other hand, acquire English vocabulary, syntax, English morphology, and idioms naturally through meaningful interactions with cuers of English. These words and structures are not taught through drill or direct instruction, but rather learned through conversations with people who cue to them. Their internalized knowledge of English phonology, syntax, morphology, vocabulary, and figurative language allows them to decode and predict words as they read. Cue kids are not learning the language of English while they learn to read; rather, they are learning to read a language they already know using phonemic decoding and linguistic closure strategies. Using cued English with deaf and hard of hearing learners enables them to acquire the language naturally and gives them both the internal mastery of the English language and a phonemic awareness of the English language like that of hearing children (Doenges, 2001).

Reading Level Doesn't =Language Level

Reading scores of signing versus cue kids start to look very dissimilar in third or fourth grade, even if they may appear similar in earlier grades. On-grade-level reading scores for young deaf and hard of hearing children in the early elementary years need to be interpreted carefully. Many readers immersed in American Sign Language or manual sign systems, where the consonant-vowel phonemic information of English is absent, learn to read using sight-word, non-phonemic strategies. At approximately the third or fourth grade, the strategy to memorize words as whole units may start to max out because of visual memory limitations. The lack of familiarity with English phonemes, vocabulary, and syntax becomes a huge liability in decoding, predicting, and comprehending more complex sentences.

Readers immersed in English via cued English learn to read using phonemic strategies. They do not rely on a sight-word approach as their main decoding strategy. They have learned the alphabetic code/phoneme correlation between the printed letter and the English phoneme. They apply phonemic decoding strategies in an interactive manner with their internalized knowledge of the English language to decode the words on the page. They read on grade level in grades one, two, and three for a different reason than their peers who are not using phonemic strategies (Doenges & Kyllo, 2001).

The situation where on-grade-level reading scores can mask actual English language levels is illustrated by Tessa, one of our students. Tessa, who has a congenital severe-profound hearing loss, had on-grade-level reading scores in both second and fifth grades, but, when tested on English language measures using cued English in second grade at age 8, was found to have the English language level of a 4-year-old. Tessa’s parents and professional team decided to increase her immersion in English via cued English from two hours a day to the majority of her school day starting in third grade. She maintained this level of exposure throughout fourth grade. When Tessa was retested at the beginning of fifth grade, English vocabulary scores revealed a five-year gain attained in three school years. Significant growth in written English skills occurred as well. The gains in Tessa’s performance demonstrate the effectiveness of immersion, natural language learning, and effective language instructional practices.

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Assessment of English Achievement

Measurement of student achievement is conducted using formal and informal measures on a yearly basis in the District 917 Program for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Learners, as well as during the federally required three-year special education reevaluation process. The program is currently utilizing the following formal measures normed on hearing students in addition to other formal and informal measures to assess receptive and expressive English language development and reading achievement: The Test of Auditory Comprehension of Language-Third Edition (Carrow-Woolfolk, 1999); The Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-Third Edition (Semel, Wiig,& Secord, 1995), The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Third Edition (Dunn, Dunn, & Dunn, 1997), the Cottage Acquisition Scales for Listening, Language and Speech (Wilkes, 2001); and the Gates-MacGinitie Test of Reading (MacGinitie & MacGinitie, 2003). All tests measuring English competency are administered in English via cued English (Crain & Kyllo, 2003).

Rethinking English Immersion as a Prerequisite to Literacy

I believe that the field of deaf education must first acknowledge and address the prevalent situation of ambiguous and absent access to natural English language acquisition inherent in the majority of current educational linguistic environments for deaf and hard of hearing learners before it can enter into discussions of “best practices in reading” and address the issue of the acquisition of phonemic awareness skills in deaf and hard of hearing children. It is premature to talk about reading development and strategies absent from the creation of linguistic environments that allow deaf and hard of hearing learners to acquire an internalized mastery of the English language before coming to the task of reading and writing.

Access to English via Cued American English:
“All or Nothing”

See this chart in PDF

It is important to note that our program views the use of signs and cues as vehicles for exposure to specific languages. As this relates to the use of cued American English, the Intermediate District 917 Program for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Learners recognizes the need to emphasize and define ‘sufficient early exposure.’ The program maintains that phonological awareness of a traditionally spoken language can best be established when a deaf or hard of hearing child is immersed in a language-rich environment that uses cueing to make the linguistic information of that language visibly accessible. The program’s use of cued English contrasts with other programs that may incorporate the use of cueing for English phonics, phonemic drills or spelling, as opposed to the use of cueing for broader access to English in conversational and other instructional contexts for a significant portion of the school day. Programs incorporating cueing on such a sporadic and isolated basis may indeed erroneously conclude that the use of cueing does not work to achieve English proficiency, even if such drills are used on a daily basis, due to failing to recognize the degree of sufficient early exposure and immersion necessary to acquire proficiency in another language (Crain & Kyllo, 2003).

Shifting Paradigms: Betrayal or Maximizing Potential and Opportunities?

The use of cueing with learners who are deaf and hard of hearing cannot be discussed without acknowledging the emotional and personal reactions its use causes. Admittedly, I was one who initially was very uncomfortable with the idea of using Cued Speech with children who are deaf or hard of hearing. Its existence was never mentioned during my pre-service teacher training program. The use of Cued Speech to convey the language of English was not part of my earlier experience working in residential deaf school settings and I did not encounter it during my work as a certified sign language interpreter. To me, the system initially looked odd and unnatural. Its existence was very much at odds with my perspective on what the educational and linguistic environments for deaf children should be.

At a later date, however, when we—my colleagues and I— were faced with the data that deaf children immersed in English via cueing were consistently achieving higher literacy levels in English than deaf children in other programs, we determined that we had to put our attitudes of bias, ridicule, and skepticism aside. If literacy in English was possible as a result of immersion via cued English, we concluded such bias and ridicule was inappropriate and self-serving. Changing the paradigm regarding the language of instruction in the District 917 program was an emotional and difficult task and it did not occur overnight. We concluded, however, that we could no longer participate in practices that resulted in deficient language-learning environments for learners who need visual access to English and that contribute to the legacy of underachievement of many bright and talented deaf and hard of hearing individuals.

There are many highly literate, highly educated, and successful adults who are deaf or hard of hearing and who acquired their English literacy skills without exposure to cued American English. The existence of such individuals is often used as an argument against considering the use of cueing. The critical question I believe the field must address, however, is: What linguistic educational environment will provide visual, linguistically complete, unambiguous access to the language of English for the majority of children who are deaf or hard of hearing on a consistent basis so that the barriers and struggles to acquire English skills are considerably minimized?

Language learning for children who are hearing, deaf, or hard of hearing should not be a struggle. Therefore, if there is a visual means available for deaf and hard of hearing learners to acquire English skills, as well as skills in American Sign Language, at an early age following an age-appropriate developmental sequence and through natural discourse, then it is incumbent on the field of deaf education to focus attention on and consider such a means in the immediate future.

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Myths on All Sides

For many practitioners in the field, there is a sense of betrayal in using Cued Speech due to the myths and misconceptions surrounding its use and due to the fear that its use threatens the use of American Sign Language. There is a prevalent misunderstanding that the use of cueing is dependent on the use of speech.

On the other hand, practitioners from oral/aural approaches believe that the use of cueing creates a crutch of visual dependency that hinders the development of auditory and speech skills. We maintain and observe that the provision of cueing has the opposite effect. We observe that cueing provides the phonemic information missing or deficient in the auditory signal for learners who are deaf or hard of hearing, which we believe is important for learners who are learning language. This allows for a complete mapping and internalization of phonemic and linguistic information of English in the brain. We believe that this ability to make linguistic predictions based on an internalized knowledge of this language promotes rather than hinders the development of speech and auditory skills.

Another prevalent myth in the profession is the belief that concepts can only be conveyed visually to learners who are deaf or hard of hearing through sign language. The many examples of successful young adults who were immersed only in English via the system of Cued Speech in conversational English at an early age are testimony to the fallacy of this belief. These individuals learned high-level and abstract concepts quite successfully while simultaneously learning and internalizing the language of English (Beck & Cornett, 2002).

At the District 917 program, we know that learners who are deaf or hard of hearing are capable of being bilingual in two very visually distinct languages, just as hearing children are able to be bilingual in auditorally distinct spoken languages. Rather than believing that deaf children are being deprived of American Sign Language by immersion in cued American English, the District 917 Program believes that these learners are being afforded opportunities to meet their language, academic, and vocational potential while simultaneously experiencing a linguistic learning environment to acquire proficiency in American Sign Language and English.

Choices in Deaf Education: Paradigm Paralysis or Paradigm Pliancy?

Practitioners in the field of deaf education have choices to make. The status of underachievement among the majority of learners who are deaf and hard of hearing in our country continues to exist. The negative impact on academic and vocational opportunities and performance for many learners as a result prevails. Against this backdrop, the field can choose to look at the growing body of research on the powerful tool of cued English and its success in providing English language proficiency, phonemic awareness, and literacy for learners who are deaf or hard of hearing.

I believe that there is a critical and immediate need to examine the linguistic educational environments in which deaf and hard of hearing learners are expected to acquire English language proficiency and literacy. In addition, there is a need to shift current paradigms to include strategies that make natural language acquisition of English possible at an early age in a developmentally appropriate sequence similar to hearing children. It is critical that educators in the field of deaf education not lose sight of the prerequisites for natural language learning and seek to address the development of phonemic awareness skills in the context of immersion in English via means that provide unambiguous linguistic access to the language.

This article is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Orin Cornett, inventor of the system of Cued Speech, who passed away in December 2002.

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References

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