APPLIED RESEARCH PROPOSAL

COMPREHENSION STRATEGIES: EFFECT ON

READING COMPREHENSION OF CHILDREN WITH HEARING IMPAIRMENT

INTRODUCTION
Students who are deaf or hard of hearing often struggle to develop or improve
crucial literacy skills. One of the most difficult skills for them to master is reading
comprehension. According to van Staden (2013), “The reading skills of many deaf children
lag several years behind those of hearing children, and there is a need for identifying
reading difficulties and implementing effective reading support strategies in this
population” (p. 305). This study explores multiple strategies that teachers can use with
students who are deaf or hard of hearing to support the development of good reading
comprehension skills.

The population of students who are deaf or hard of hearing, typically struggle with
acquiring crucial literacy skills and/or obtaining reading abilities past the elementary level.
“Reading comprehension is an ongoing concern for students who are deaf or hard of
hearing,” (Benedict, Rivera, & Antia, 2015, p. 1) making the topic of reading comprehension
extremely important. Sullivan and Oakhill (2015) mention that “there has been relatively
little progress in improving narrative comprehension in DHH readers despite decades of
research” (p. 134), proving a need for further research into this topic.

The lack of literacy skills in students who are deaf or hard of hearing leads to their
struggle in the secondary grades as well as throughout their college careers or in the post
high school job market, unlike their hearing peers. In order for these students to stay on
grade level and graduate with the skills necessary to either be a successful college student
or find a decent job after high school, teachers of the deaf need to be made aware of any
methods or strategies they can use to successfully support the development of reading
comprehension skills in their students. Unfortunately, “One of the major challenging tasks
of educators of deaf and hard of hearing students is to enhance the reading comprehension
performance of their students,” (Nikolaraizi, Vekiri, & Easterbrooks, 2013, p. 485). Part of
this challenge is that students who are deaf or hard of hearing often fail to grasp that the
point of reading is to understand what they are reading, not just read the words (Benedict,
Rivera, & Antia, 2015).

Students who are deaf or hard of hearing develop language and literacy skills in
somewhat of a different way than students who are hearing. One example of this is
incidental learning. Students who are hearing acquire some of their language from parents,
siblings, TV, and radio. Students who are deaf are less exposed to language during their
early years, especially if their parents are hearing and do not learn sign language. As
Friedmann and Szterman (2010) note, “Many children whose hearing is impaired receive
limited language input during the sensitive period for language acquisition,” (p. 212). In
addition to limited language input, many of the strategies used to help hearing students
improve their literacy skills often need to be modified for students who are deaf or hard of
hearing.

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES

In order to understand and research how students who are deaf or hard of hearing
gain reading comprehension skills, it is important to review the recent literature published
concerning this topic. Three themes will be explored within this literature review. The
first themes focuses on strategies that have been used with deaf or hard of hearing
students in order to increase their literacy skills, especially in the area of reading
comprehension. Multiple different strategies have been tested in classrooms with students
who are deaf or hard of hearing with the goal of increasing their reading skills to a level
comparative with their hearing peers. Some of those strategies resulted in successful
improvement of reading comprehension, where others showed no difference in the
student’s skills after the intervention time frames. It is also important to note that most of
these strategies are specifically designed for students who are deaf or hard of hearing as
opposed to typical struggling readers who are hearing. The second theme will identify
different factors that affect reading comprehension skills of students who are deaf or hard
of hearing. Since vocabulary knowledge and phonology play significant roles in reading
and reading comprehension, it is important to explore the specific effects these two things
have on the reading comprehension of students who are deaf or hard of hearing.

In addition to not having oral language exposure as infants, students who are deaf or
hard of hearing struggle with English because American Sign Language (ASL) has a
different structure than English. Freidmann and Szterman (2011) support that theory by
stating that “Hearing loss during the critical period for language acquisition restricts
spoken language input. This input limitation in turn may hamper syntactic development”
(p. 212). ASL is also a visual only language conveyed using ones hands, facial expression,
and body language. There has never been a written form of ASL. Hoffman and Yang (2010)
add to these concepts by stating that “The differences between any English language
learner’s native language and English are compounded for learners who are deaf or hard of
hearing by the fact that ASL has no written form” (p. 131). Students who are deaf or hard
of hearing also need support in learning to read so that they are not left out of
communication within our society. On that topic, Daza, Phillips-Silver, Ruiz-Cuadra, and
Lopez-Lopez (2014) state:

Learning how to read is one of the most important tasks that deaf children have to
face. Since our society transmits the majority of information in an oral way, good
 reading skills are a very efficient mean of receiving and acceding information for
deaf individuals. (p. 3526)

In agreement with Daza, Phillips-Silver, Ruiz-Cuadra, and Lopez-Lopez (2014) and Hoffman
and Yang (2010), Hermans, Knoors, Ormel, and Verhoeven said that “Learning to read is
vital for individuals to participate in society, even more so when those individuals are deaf”
(p. 518).

Researched Reading Comprehension Strategies for Deaf Students

Student who are deaf or hard of hearing, often struggle with literacy skills, and
especially with the comprehension of written text. The reasons that students who are deaf
or hard of hearing struggle with reading abilities can be described with this statement
made by Mich, Pianta, and Mana (2013):

Deaf children have significant difficulties in comprehending written text. This is

mainly due to the hearing loss that prevents them from being exposed to oral
language when they were an infant. However, it is also due to the type of
educational intervention they are faced with, which accustoms them to decoding
single words and isolated sentences, rather than entire texts. (p.34)

Multiple different strategies have been tested in classrooms with students who are
deaf or hard of hearing with the goal of increasing their reading skills to a level
comparative with their hearing peers. Staden (2013) suggests that “The reading skills of
many deaf children lag several years behind those of hearing children, and there is a need
for identifying reading difficulties and implementing effective reading strategies in this
population” (p. 305). In other words, it is the duty of educators of the deaf to identify their
students’ needs and explore strategies to help them improve their reading skills.

In an attempt to improve the reading skills of students who are deaf or hard of
hearing, multiple researchers have tried adding pictures or graphic representations to
stories and books. Like many other researchers, Mich, Pianta, and Mana (2013) realize that
students who are deaf or hard of hearing face serious obstacles in the area of
comprehending written text. To test if adding visuals would aid students who are deaf or
hard of hearing with their reading comprehension, they used interactive stories from a web
based program with their students. One goal of their study was to determine if deaf or
hard of hearing students and hearing children could all perform better in the area of
reading comprehension if the stories were simplified as well as illustrated. A similar study
done by Nikolaraizim, Vekiri, and Easterbrooks (2013) examined how students who were
deaf used the visual resources of a multimedia software package. The software was
designed to reinforce reading comprehension skills. In both cases, the post assessments
showed an increase in comprehension skills after the interventions had been used with the
students. Gentry, Chinn, and Moulton (2004/2005) also assessed the addition of visual aid
by researching the effectiveness of multimedia reading materials with students who were
deaf or hard of hearing. Results indicated that the format in which students had the highest
reading comprehension scores was the print and pictures, as opposed to the assumed print,
plus pictures, plus sign language. The authors noted that “This finding was somewhat
surprising because it defied assumptions that children who are deaf and using sign
language in their everyday communication would benefit from having sign language given
as a reading cue” (p. 400). The results of this study the two previous studies findings in that
adding visuals to text can enhance the reading comprehension of students who are deaf or
hard of hearing. The results of the first study by Mich, Pianta, and Mana (2013) indicated
that while students who were hearing (the control group) still outperformed the students
who were deaf or hard of hearing, simplifying and illustrating the story had a positive
impact of the comprehension of all students involved in the study. These results lead
researchers to believe that adding visuals with text support reading comprehension skills
in students who are deaf or hard of hearing. The results of the second study conducted by
Nikolaraizim, Vekiri, and Easterbrooks (2013) also showed a positive correlation between
added visuals and reading comprehension. They also noted that the students appreciated
the used the majority of the visual resources offered in the software. Gentry, Chinn, and
Moulton (2004/2005) noted in their results that “pictures were shown to be a powerful
factor in the transfer of factual information during the reading process” (p. 401).

Benedict, Rivera, and Antia (2015) researched a metacognitive strategy to increase

Deaf and Hard of Hearing students’ reading comprehension. They used an intervention
called Comprehension, Check, and Repair Strategy. The strategy is described as:

The purpose of the CC&R is to teach students how to use a self-questioning

technique to monitor their own comprehension. The strategy is designed to be used
with content-area text, allowing for integrated instruction in content, reading
comprehension, and metacognition. Students monitor comprehension by
periodically stopping during reading to ask themselves whether they understand
what they read and if they were already familiar with the information in the
passage. If they do not understand, they ask themselves questions about the
material, think aloud about where they might find the answer, and look for the
answer as they read the remainder of the text. (p.3)

Data was collected on the students’ strategic reading behaviors and was compared
to the increase of reading comprehension skills. Results showed an increase in strategic
reading behaviors for the three students involved in the study and an increase in reading
comprehension skills for two of the students in the study. Benedict, Rivera, and Antia
stated that “Instruction in metacognitive strategies to increase strategic reading behavior
may be an effective means by which to increase reading comprehension for D/HH
students” (p. 1).

Dimling (2010) also investigated a non-visual reading strategy to help students who
are Deaf or Hard of Hearing improves their reading skills through a vocabulary
intervention. For six to eight weeks, six students took part in a 30 minute intervention to
determine what effects vocabulary intervention would have on word recognition,
production, and comprehension. Each week the students learned 12 new vocabulary
words using three components: word introduction, word activities, and practice. Dimling
described her findings as “The results of the present study suggest that a vocabulary
intervention grounded in conceptual emphasis can substantially and positively affect
students’ vocabulary knowledge” (p. 444). This study suggests that vocabulary has an
impact on reading comprehension for student who is deaf or hard of hearing.

Andrews and Rushner (2010) conducted a study on an evidence based instructional

practice in a bilingual classroom: codeswitching. They describe codeswitching as “a
purpose-driven instructional technique in which the teacher strategically changes from
ASL to English print for purposes of vocabulary and reading comprehension” (Andrews &
Rushner, 2010, p.407). After researching multiple code switching techniques and bilingual
strategies during different areas of literacy instruction, Andrews and Rushner come to the
conclusion that:

The instructional strategy of code-switching at the word, phrase, and story levels
can be planned and implemented in a classroom where both languages are used to build
English reading skills- vocabulary and retelling of a story and expository text segments- as
these studies demonstrate. Deaf children do not have to be balanced bilinguals to
participate in these intervention strategies; nor do the teachers need to be balanced
bilinguals to implement them. (p. 420). According to Monreal and Hernandez (2005)
“Reading skills make children autonomous learners, and thus considerably facilitate
academic and social success” (p. 379). Of the intervention strategies reviewed, the majority
showed that they could be implemented with students who are deaf or hard of hearing in
order to increase their reading comprehension skills.

Currently, the research is either extremely limited or non-existent on the topic of

newer strategies the support struggling readers, such as close reading or pre-teaching
vocabulary, and their effect on the reading comprehension skills of deaf students. As
Nikolaraizi, Vekiri, and Easterbrooks (2013) say “One of the major challenging tasks of
educators of deaf and hard of hearing students is to enhance the reading comprehension
performance of their students” (p. 458). It is essential that educators stay up to date on
current strategies to best support the students in their classrooms.
 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

Comprehension Strategies

Profile of respondents ▫ Re-reading

in terms of age,
▫ Pre-Teaching Vocabulary
gender and interests
▫ Using American Sign Language

Improvement in
Reading
Comprehension of
Children with Autism

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

In this context, the purpose of the study is to determine the effects of
comprehension strategies in the reading comprehension of children with hearing
impairment. Thus, the research questions are:

1- Is there a significant difference between the pre-test and post-test scores of students
based on comprehension strategies?
2- How will comprehension strategies affect the reading comprehension of the
students?
3- Is there improvement on students’ attitude towards reading based on
comprehension strategies?

HYPOTHESIS
The class will be exposed to comprehension strategies in the hopes of improving the
students’ comprehension skills. The study postulates three hypotheses to be tested:
H1: If the teacher provides comprehension strategies, then students’ reading
comprehension will be improved.
 H2: By providing comprehension strategies, students will have a big significant
effect on their pre-test and post-test results.
H3: By providing comprehension strategies, students’ literacy skill will be enhanced.

SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY
The aim of this study is to help the students improve their reading comprehension
by providing different comprehension skills. This study hopes to enhance specifically the
students’ intellectual ability, vocabulary knowledge and sign-language comprehension.

In completing this research it was essential to discover the instructional practices

that teachers of the deaf/hh use to promote reading comprehension, vocabulary
knowledge, and sign-language comprehension, in order to provide an appropriate context
within which to analyze the data. For effective evaluation it is crucial to examine what
strategies teachers currently implement and teach students to use as it pertains to these
areas.

SCOPE AND LIMITATIONS

This study concerns the whole class of children with hearing impairment. The study
is to find the significant effect of comprehension strategies in the students’ reading
comprehension skills. The aspects looked into were the qualifications of teachers, their
methods and strategies, facilities forms of supervisory assistance, problems and proposed
solutions to problems.
Limitations of the study
1) Financial constraint – Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the
researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and
in the process of data collection (internet, questionnaire and interview)
2) Time constraint – The researcher will simultaneously engage in this study with
other academic work. This consequently will cut down on the time devoted for
the research work.

METHOD

TYPE OF RESEARCH
Throughout this study, it will be important to ensure the quality and credibility of
the data gathered. Mills (2014) focuses on the writing of Guba (1981) to address the issue
of trustworthiness in action research through the characteristics of credibility,
transferability, dependability, and confirmability. Credibility can be defined as “the
researcher’s ability to take into account the complexities that present themselves in a study
and to deal with patterns that are not easily explained” (Mills, 2014, p. 115Guba (1981)
suggests that researchers collect videos, artifacts, and documents to ensure credibility. The
researcher should gather field notes and student artifacts to meet the criteria for a credible
study.

The second criterion for active research is transferability. Guba (1981) describes
transferability as “qualitative researchers’ beliefs that everything they study is context
bound and that the goal of their work is not to develop “truth” statements that can be
generalized to larger groups of people” (Mills, 2014, p. 116). In order to establish
transferability in the study, the researcher should take detailed field to ensure accurate
data is collected. One should also use multiple methods in the data collection to meet the
criteria of a dependable study. Dependability is defined by Guba (1981) as “the stability of
the data” (Mills, 2014, p. 116). By having overlapping methods of field notes, and student
artifacts; the researcher will able to provide dependable data.

Lastly, the researcher will use multiple methods to ensure triangulation and
establish confirmability in this study. With the above criteria, the researcher will able to
guarantee the quality of the research while also establishing trustworthiness and validity.
By ensuring the credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability, this study can
be considered valid.

RESPONDENTS AND SAMPLING METHOD

This study concerns the whole class of children with hearing impairment. The
teacher will identify his/her students’ interests. This will help create required
competencies needed to be improve in order to prepare interventions.

SOURCE OF DATA
Being hearing impaired, this research focuses on the qualitative data. The
observation towards the children’s attitude towards learning and their participation in the
discussions. The willingness to learn and do more things.
This research also provide data from their quizzes as well as on their homeworks to
provide a concrete background whether there is a significant change or not.

INSTRUMENTS
Instruments may vary depending on the interventions the researcher wants to put
action to. One way to improve the reading comprehension of children with hearing
impairment is using graphic organizers. Webs, concept maps, mind maps and plots such as
stack plots and Venn diagrams are some of the types of graphic organizers used in visual
learning to enhance reading comprehension skills.

Also, one can prepare visual aids through projectors, television. Educational videos,
stories even seminars and workshop can be displayed to broaden the intervention the
researcher can be conducted.

DATA COLLECTION PROCEDURE AND ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS

In order to collect data in this study that will provide multiple, accurate results, the
researcher will use the following: active observation field notes and student artifacts. The
active observation field notes will be taken before, during, and after the three intervention
strategies will be use with the students.

Student artifacts were also collected from the intervention strategies. The
researcher will provide each of the students with pre-tests and post-tests to determine the
effect of the strategy implemented each during each session.

DATA ANALYSIS
Based on their pre-test and post-test results, students should have improve their
reading comprehension. By using different graphic organizers and also visual aids, the
students enhanced their literacy skills.

Lastly by providing different strategies, the students’ attitude towards reading

should also be improve.

INTERVENTION (PLAN OF ACTION)

For this study, the researcher will collect qualitative and quantitative data in order
to discover what strategies teachers use to successfully support reading comprehension
skills in students who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing. Working with the students in the
classroom, the researcher will collect field notes during three different intervention
strategies as well as pre-tests and post-test scores. The strategies that will be implemented
with the students were: Re-reading, Pre-Teaching Vocabulary, and Using American Sign
Language to convey a story in place of students reading for themselves.

The re-reading strategy will be tested by giving the students a running reading
record assessment which included reading comprehension questions at the end. The
students will read their passage the first time, while the researcher will mark miscues on a
running record sheet and will answer the comprehension questions once they will be
finished reading. Students then will read the passage for a second and third time before
answering the comprehension questions again. The purpose of this strategy is to
determine if re-reading the passages aided their reading comprehension skills.
 Pre-teaching vocabulary will also be tested by giving students a running reading
record assessment. Only in this intervention, one assessment will be given to be read
silently and comprehension question will be answered after the first reading. A second
different passage (at the same reading level and in the same genre) will be given to the
student. The researcher will teach specific vocabulary words within that passage before
the students read the passage and answer the comprehension questions. The purpose of
this intervention is to determine if pre-teaching important vocabulary words will support
the comprehension of the entire text.

For the third intervention, the researcher will give the students a story to read to
themselves and comprehension questions to answer. The researcher then will sign a
different story (same text level and genre) using American Sign Language and sign the
reading comprehension questions for the students.

COST ESTIMATES
Varies on the instruments needed. The materials needed in providing visual aids
and presentation in performing various interventions. As well as the materials needed in
presenting the problem. If possible, the television for an innovative display of lessons.
Overall, this research estimates that the cost that most likely to be needed will be less than
three hundred pesos (P500.00).
PLAN FOR DISSEMINATION AND ADVOCACY
This research will most likely be useful to those who struggle in making children
with hearing impairment do more. This traditional way of enhancing their social skills to
boost their confidence into providing some information about the given topic without
knowing that they are achieving something. This study is relevant to those who are finding
another way to bring fun in their lessons with giving a different perspective on the lesson.

REFERENCE
Andrews, J. F. & Rusher, M. (2010). Codeswitching techniques: Evidence-based
instructional practices for the ASL/English bilingual classroom. American Annals of
the Deaf , 155(4), 407-424.

Benedict, K. M., Rivera, M. C., & Antia, S. D. (2015). Instruction in metacognitive

strategies to increase deaf and hard-of-hearing students’ reading comprehension.
Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education, 20(1), 1-15.

Daza, M., Philips-Silver, J., Ruiz-Cuadra, M., & Lopez-Lopez, F. (2014). Language skills
and nonverbal cognitive processes associated with reading comprehension in deaf
children. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 35, 3526-3533.
Dimling, L. M. (2010). Conceptually based vocabulary intervention: Second graders’
development of vocabulary words. American Annals of the Deaf , 155(4), 425-448.

Friedmann, N. & Szterman, R. (2001). The comprehension and production of wh-

questions in deaf and hard-of-hearing children. Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf
Education, 16(2), 212-235.

Hoffman, M. & Wang, Y. (2010). The use of graphic representations of sign language in
leveled texts to support deaf readers. American Annals of the Deaf , 155(2), 131-
136.

Miller, P. (2005). Reading comprehension and its relation to the qulaity of functional
hearing: evidence from readers with different functional hearing abilities. American
Annals of the Deaf , 150(3), 305-323.

Mich, O., Pianta, E., & Mana, N. (2013). Interactive stories and exercises with dynamic
feedback for improving reading comprehension skills in deaf children. Computers &
Education, 65, 34-44.

Monreal, S. T. & Hernandez, R. S. (2005). Reading levels of Spanish deaf students.

American Annals of the Deaf , 150(4), 379-386.

Nikolraizi, M., Vekiri, I., & Easterbrooks, S. R. (2013). Investigating deaf students’ use of
visual multimedia resources in reading comprehension. American Annals of the Deaf
, 157(5), 458-473.

van Staden, A. (2013). An evaluation of an intervention using sign lnaguage and multi-
sensory coding to support word learing and reading comprehension of deaf signing
children. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 29(3), 305- 318.