Abstract
The level of reading literacy of children is a topic that sparks lively debate among both Czech and foreign public. There is nevertheless less knowledge about reading literacy of the children with hearing loss.
There is generally little knowledge, even among experts, on how to "ignite" reading skills already at their preschool age. This publication offers the intervention approach focusing on the specific field of pre-literate skills - developing of fonemic realization among the children with hearing loss.
The authors interpret the issue of hearing impairment, language skills and the process of acquiring literacy from the developmental perspective. That enables them to set the intervention into the developmental context and explain the way of how the developing fonemic realization helps connect the language development with the reading and writing development.
The monograph starts with defining the specifics of the development of communication and language skills in the case of children with congenital hearing loss. The phonological skills play an important role in the language development, and consequently represent one of the pillars of the reading development.
The relationship between the phonological development and reading skills of non-disabled children has already been studied thoroughly; and phonematic realization is generally recognized to be the causal predictor of reading. That is also the reason why the experts create effective interventions, focused on the stimulation of phonematic realization with the preschool children.
Significantly less information there is about the intervention possibilities regarding the children with hearing loss. The authors created an intervention programme for preschool and early school-age children with hearing loss, focused specifically on the phonematic realization development.
The metholodology was created as a modification of The Training of Language Skills (Trénink jazykových schopností) by D. B.
Elkonin (Mikulajová, Nováková Schöffelová, Tokárová a Dostálová 2016). The methodological basis of Elkonin's method and its modification, the characteristics of the approach towards the children with hearing loss, and the specific methodical approach, are thoroughly described in chapters 5-7.
They are supplemented with the edited CD video recordings, attached as an annex of the monograph. On these video recordings, the specific described procedures are captured.
The whole course of the intervention is described and explained via three case interpretations. The individual interventions are depicted in the children's development detail and include the cooperation with families and schools.
In the final chapter, the authors discuss the possibilities that the Elkonin's Training of Language Skills offers. They argue that if the method's procedure is carefully followed and if other important conditions influencing the course of the intervention are ensured, than children can built the phonematic realization to such an extent, that reading and writing will appear as its closest development outcome.
The authors combined their long-time research interests in the field of the language and literacy development with their practical professional experiences with the logopedic interventions with children with hearing loss. The book is intended for special pedagogues, logopedists, school and counselling-centre psychologists, and people who are deeply interested in the development and education of the children with hearing loss.