Implications of utilizing a phonics-based reading curriculum with children who are deaf or hard of hearing

Extensive literature has reiterated the reading difficulties of students who are deaf or hard of hearing. Building and expanding upon the work of B. J. Trezek and K. W. Malmgren, this study demonstrated that given 1 year of instruction from a phonics-based reading curriculum supplemented by Visual Phonics, kindergarten and first-grade students who were deaf or hard of hearing could demonstrate improvements in beginning reading skills as measured by standardized assessments of (a) word reading, (b) pseudoword decoding, and (c) reading comprehension. Furthermore, the acquisition of beginning reading skills did not appear to be related to degree of hearing loss. In this study, students with various degrees of hearing loss benefited equally well from this phonics-based reading curriculum supplemented by Visual Phonics.