My research area focuses on deaf literacy. My essential question is something like, "How do deaf children become literate after only communicating manually?" Some ideas for essential questions are:

1. How do hearing children become literate?

2. What are the roles of the teacher and the SLP in this situation?

3. What can parents do to help?

4.What is the outcome for the education of deaf chidren if they are illiterate?

5. What is the hardest thing about becoming literate, according to a deaf person who only communicated manually before?

6. What techniques are used to teach spelling?

7. Is there a delay in the acquisition of literacy skills (spelling/reading/writing) in deaf children, as compared to hearing children?

8. If so (to #7), when do deaf children eventually "catch up," if at all?

I can’t believe this week is OVER! It definitely flew by. I don’t know why some weeks drag on forever and ever, and others just seem to pass in a day. Anyway…So this week I decided that I would plan to just get caught up from week 3. I am glad to say that today, I finally finished my last assignment for last week. Now I just need to get going on this week’s assignments. I also had planned on doing a little more research than I did last week, but that requires going to the library to do research and I thought that if I had to spend another hour on campus this week, I would probably be sick. Needless to say, my research time was limited to that between classes this week.

I didn’t really write about the content of last weeks’ assignments, and since I have just finished them and haven’t started this week’s, I’ll start there. I did the easiest, shortest ones first and put off the “thinking” and hard work ones until today. Actually, though, I liked them the best. The foundation questions assignment was good because I feel like I finally have a definite direction to go in. Also, I feel like there is some structure to my project. I also like the webliography assignment because, although it was a little time consuming, it was fun. I am definitely not finished with it, but I think it will be a little highlight for me.

Processes……well, I am familiar with search engines and use them a lot, so I don’t think I really had to use lot of new processes to complete some of the assignments. However, I did learn about some new tools and got to see what happens when you use a search engine other than Google (I’m so jaded. J). On the learning highlights assignment, I think it was definitely fun to stir up some old memories about high school and was really interesting to see what first came to mind when I thought about learning. It’s odd, to think now, that the first thing that comes to mind is the hardest class(es) I had while at HHS.

I thought it was so neat to get to see what everyone else learned while they were in high school (or earlier), and just shed a little light on what everyone else was up to while I was sitting through World History. Personally, I know that I get a little bit egocentric (unconsciously), and forget that there are other methods of learning and other ways high schools were run and that not everyone had the same experiences I did in high school. It’s really good not only to hear about where everyone else has “been” on their learning paths, but also where they’re “going” with their research topics. I never would have thought about some of their ideas on my own.

My apologies go out to week 4 assignments, which, up until today have been grossly neglected. I will say, though, that the MOO meeting was interesting. It made me a little nervous and it was a little weird, but I think that’s how new things are supposed to be. Maybe next week I’ll be all caught up and can reflect on both. Have a fabulous weekend…..I’ll be here….on my computer……wading through these assignment

Fun Places

Discipline-Related Places

Research Resources

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