Reading strategies in bilingually educated deaf children. Some preliminary findings.
Kristina Svartholm

In 1991, the first group of deaf children, educated according to what was stated in the Swedish national Curriculum in the early eighties – i.e. bilingually with Swedish Signe language as their first language and Swedish in its written form as their second – finalized their compulsory schooling. In my paper I will present a study of their reading proficiency, as shown by their retellings and translations of texts into Swedish Sign language, in comparison to reading abilities found among other deaf children within the same age-group but with a less consistent bilingual education, mainly a Total Communication approach. Contrary to the latter, the first group demonstrated an age-appropriate level of understanding written Swedish. Their reading strategies, as proved by the study, will be discussed not only in comparison to the less effective strategies found among the others, but also in relation to the instruction they had got in written Swedish as a “silent” second language, i.e. without taking speech into account for developing reading skills but using their first language, Swedish Sign language , as the base. Out from this, the assumption of a phonologically based decoding as a prerequisite of literacy in the deaf will be questioned.