ABSTRACT
Since 1970, reading research with Deaf children has been occupied with the problem of
how to describe the reading process in this population. Most generally accepted models
of reading development in hearing children recognize the important role of phonological
coding in the development of skillful reading (Perfetti, 1991; Stanovich 1991; see
Committee for the Prevention of Reading Difficulties in Young Children, 1998). Perfetti
(1991) argued that phonology is involved in beginning reading and later develops into an
abstract awareness when the child becomes more familiar with the alphabetic
representation and has a growing vocabulary of words in print. He portrayed
phonological awareness as a reflective skill, in which the child analyzes words in print as
being made up of phonemes and syllables and productively uses this knowledge to
analyze less common and less regular words. Later, the child comes to appreciate
orthographic systematicities and can blend phonological awareness and visual or
orthographic awareness into an effective and efficient reading process.
