Report on Reading and Deaf Children Launched

Reading and Deaf and Hard of Hearing Pupils in Mainstream Education in Ireland (2018)

Dr. Elizabeth S. Mathews & Dr. Margaret O’Donnell

Dr. Elizabeth S. Mathews and Dr. Margaret O’Donnell have launched a research report that examines reading among deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) pupils in Ireland.  This is the first large study on this topic in Ireland since the early 1990s.  This study was underpinned by evidence from international research on literacy and DHH pupils which points to the gap between reading levels of DHH pupils and their age equivalent peers and to evidence that as pupils get older, the gap between them and their hearing peers increases. Some more recent international studies have had more promising results, in particular for pupils who receive early identification and intervention. 

Using a mixed-methods design approach, the focus of this study was firstly, to explore the reading outcomes for 40 DHH pupils and secondly, to examine how progress in reading for DHH pupils is measured by teachers in mainstream schools. Results showed that most of the DHH pupils in this sample were reading within normal ranges compared with their hearing peers.  However, comparison across scores from both tests indicates that there is a disparity between different skills in reading, namely phonological decoding (the skills required in sounding out words or reading words aloud) and reading comprehension (understanding what is read), with twice the number of pupils in the study having below average comprehension scores when compared with their phonological decoding scores.

The qualitative findings from fourteen teacher interviews served well to explain these findings in that, while formal testing took place yearly, teachers were more regularly assessing skills relating to decoding skills (phonics and word recognition) than skills relating to comprehension or language (receptive and expressive skills). Teachers reported challenges in relation to professional development, access to suitable assessments for DHH pupils and the need for guidelines in relation to the literacy progress of pupils who are DHH.

This research provides a basis for further follow up studies on this topic.

The report was funded by the Catholic Institute for Deaf People, Chime and the Irish Deaf Society.

A full report of this research report is available here