As an active literacy advocate, I do as much as I can to get kids reading to revert the literacy statistic of this country. However, it wasn’t until recently that I became aware of another alarming statistic—the literacy rate among deaf children.
The average deaf child is diagnosed at two or three years of age for hearing loss. This means that there is a good chance that his language development has been severely affected, as the child may have been missing large portions of spoken language, if not all auditory experience, that hearing children get from birth. What’s worse, the demand for academic achievement among deaf children is lower than for other children, resulting in learning and home environments which aren’t as focused on reading. With an upbringing that doesn’t emphasize language and literature, it is difficult to expect deaf children to perform at the same analytic and linguistic levels as other children.
That’s why I have created the signed reading of Danny the Dragon Meets Jimmy DVD, all the profits for which are going to supporting the amazing school I visited, Blossom Montessori. Its Montessori education encourages imagination and allows for real-life applications of subjects learned in the classroom. By supporting schools such as Blossom Montessori School for the Deaf, I know I am truly contributing toward reverting the deaf literacy statistic and enriching the lives of many bright children.
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