The program
Foundations for Literacy is a unique evidence-based early literacy intervention program designed for young deaf and hard of hearing children with functional hearing and who communicate in spoken and/or signed language.
The program is implemented by Teachers of the Deaf specially trained to use multi-sensory and multimodal strategies to teach vocabulary, phonological awareness, alphabetic knowledge, and narrative skills through structured, daily lessons throughout the school year.
Foundations for Literacy was developed by key researchers in deaf education from the Center on Literacy and Deafness (CLAD) at Georgia State University, USA. Lead researcher, Dr Amy Lederberg has endorsed VDEI to adapt the program for the Australian context and to coordinate training and implementation Australia-wide. All American Sign Language (ASL) resources in the Foundations for Literacy program were translated to Australian Sign Language (Auslan) by VDEI.
The Foundations for Literacy curriculum builds a firm foundation in alphabetic knowledge and phonological awareness while providing a variety of opportunities for language growth. The program focuses on the fundamental preliteracy skills that are developmentally appropriate for young children, including vocabulary, narrative skills, alphabetical knowledge, phonological awareness and decoding words and short connected text
Letter-sound correspondence
Letter-sound correspondence instruction is the core of the Foundations for Literacy program. Children are taught letter-sound correspondences in stories that provide a semantic association between a sound and a meaningful idea. Language-rich, hands-on activities also provide repeated opportunities for the children to produce sounds in isolation and to strengthen the connection to meaning.
For deaf and hard of hearing children with functional hearing who require visual supports to supplement their development of phonological awareness, Auslan, fingerspelling and other visual representations of phonics may be used to reinforce letter-sound correspondences.
Phonological awareness instruction focuses on syllable segmentation, initial sound identification, and rhyme recognition. Additional activities use letter-sound correspondences to provide practice in blending taught sounds into words. These decodable words are combined with high frequency words to provide children with opportunities to begin reading phrases and simple sentences.
The letter-sound correspondences are introduced in a specific order that addresses the development of listening skills by young deaf and hard of hearing children. Children learn long vowels first because long vowels are easier to hear than short vowels. Long vowels also are easier to say and because they are easier to sustain, they also are helpful for learning how to blend sounds.
In the classroom
Each Foundations for Literacy lesson includes differentiated teaching strategies using engaging multi-sensory, integrated activities while providing a variety of opportunities for language growth.
Classroom teachers typically implement Foundations for Literacy for four hours a week during the school year. Teachers use a variety of essential practices that help them deliver instruction consistently and systematically. These practices also allow teachers to scaffold to individualize learning. Some of these practices are specific to program components, some are utilized across the program, and some are used at the teacher’s discretion for individualization.
Learn more about Foundations for Literacy here:
Training
VDEI periodically schedules two-day training sessions with Dr Stacey Tucci, depending on demand. Dr Tucci is an internationally recognised leader in deaf education and early literacy and is a leading expert on implementing the Foundations for Literacy program.
Teachers of the Deaf who are interested in the training for the Foundations for Literacy program are required to have a thorough understanding of language development in deaf and hard of hearing children and experience with classroom-based assessment protocols.
Please check our website for details of future training sessions or email us at vdei@education.vic.gov.au(opens in a new window)
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