ABSTRACT
Teachers and children in an increasing number of educational programs in the United States and Canada are using ASL in the classroom (ASL in Schools, 1993; Ramsey, 1997; Strong, 1995). Although most of these programs aim to provide bilingual and bicultural or bilingual and multicultural education for deaf and hard of hearing students, some also serve hearing children (Evans, Zimmer, & Murray, 1994; Supalla, Wix, & McKee, in press). Many of these classrooms adopted a model of bilingual education that considers ASL the first language of the students and English the second language, accessible primarily through its written form (Johnson, Liddell, & Erting, 1989). It is not self-evident, however, how a first language in a visual, gestural modality might facilitate the acquisition of the written form of a spoken language. In fact, the argument has been made that competence in a sign language can be of no direct benefit to the acquisition of literacy based on a spoken language (Mayer & Wells, 1996). Nevertheless, Padden (1996) and her colleagues, studying Deaf children acquiring ASL and educated at a residential school, reported that parents introduce English print to children by 3 years of age and that by
the time these children are 4 years old they are productively using both fingerspelling and written English. Furthermore, Padden argued, their linguistic productions are often complex, interactive episodes wherein they move back and forth between ASL and English repeatedly within the same activity. Where might researchers look to begin to investigate the relationship between these two languages and the processes whereby ASL literacy supports and assists the acquisition of English literacy? One logical place to start is the everyday interactions among parents and children in bilingual Deaf homes. As Tharp and Gallimore (1988) suggested, educators have much to learn from “an examination of how language is taught and learned in the natural environments of home, community, and culture” (p. 94).
