Help Deaf Children learn to read and write

AN INNOVATIVE INCLUSIVE EDUCATIONAL MATERIAL IS BORN

Thanks to your help more deaf children can benefit from this unique Textbook!

Teaching how to read and write to deaf students has been for decades an important CHALLENGE. Since this population has as its first language Sign Language, and since written language is their second language (in Argentina Spanish, in the USA English) it’s always been a hard task to teach how to read and write to deaf children in a Second Language, considering that most of them do not share their first language with their families.

With this introduction we want to make sure that the person reading this post understands that most deaf children are at risk of becoming illiterate, not because of intrinsic difficulties, but as a consequence of educational barriers.

This is why Canales has decided many years ago to start an alternative, innovative path towards LITERACY FOR DEAF CHILDREN. Our projects aim to promote literature through storytelling and books translated into different Sign Languages, and some projects focus more specifically on new teaching approaches on how to read and write Spanish as a second language for deaf students.

Our first Textbook - Leer y Escribir con Arte - (Reading and Writing through the Arts) goes through different artistic expressions with activities that promote autonomous writing for children starting their alphabetization. This educational material includes a textbook with orientations for teachers and an activity book for children. Context and examples are included through videos in Sign Language.

Reading and Writing through Science (Leer y Escribir con Ciencia) continues the series of Textbooks, this time aimed at deaf children 8 to 10 and with scientific content. Experiments and curiosities are provided through videos in Sign Language.

Our third Textbook is called Reading and Writing 3. Stories of my community (Leer y Escribir 3 - Historias de mi comunidad). The textbook was designed to be used with teenagers and it is online for free download https://www.canales.org.ar/materiales_manual_leer_y_escribir_3_solicitud.php.

This month we will be proudly presenting our new Textbook, a piece of material that goes one step further by bringing innovative proposals to deepen, consolidate and expand metalinguistic processes for deaf students in their first and their second language.

The textbook “Teaching Spanish as a Second Language” (for deaf students in 4th and 5th grades) is based on the premise that deaf children can start their literacy process in Sign Language, their first language, and from there they could possibly apply more naturally those operations into learning a second language (written Spanish).

Thank you for being part of this project! Let's keep working together!

Links:

• Link to Download Textbook 3