”Exploring Letters in a Bimodal, Bilingual Nursery School with Deaf and Hearing Children”.

The purpose of this study is to generate knowledge about hearing-impaired/deaf children's introduction to reading and writing in a bimodal bilingual Norwegian nursery school. The study examines how letters are introduced to children in a co-enrolment setting, and how the children explore letters during free play

The study shows that introducing letters was a regular activity during the Monday circle time at the preschool. This activity followed fixed patterns and procedures that drew on different multimodal resources such as pictures, hand signs and letter sounds. The study shows that the nursery school teachers used auditory resources in particular, and that the primary focus in the introduction to letters was often the relationship between the letter as it looks in print and the sound of the letter, i.e. phonological awareness.

Conversely, visual resources or aids were used to a very limited extent. Moreover, the study finds that when exploring letters during free play, the hearing children used both visual and auditory resources, whereas the hearing-impaired children primarily used visual resources. Finally, the study shows that when children explore letters during free play, they primarily choose interaction with children like themselves; either hearing-impaired or hearing.

The study is an ethnographic study, which was carried out at a Norwegian nursery school for hearing and hearing-impaired children. The nursery school had an equal number of hearing-impaired children and hearing children aged 2-5 years. (The study does not state the total number). The staff comprised deaf as well as hearing teachers and assistants with different levels of skills in sign language. The preschool has no formal teaching of sign language. Instead, the hearing children are expected to pick up sign language through interaction with the hearing-impaired children and employees during free play, as well as during teacher-assigned activities. Similarly, the hearing-impaired children are expected to pick up language – both oral language and sign language – through interaction with the hearing children and employees.

The empiricism was collected at the preschool between 2008 and 2009 over 30 days. The empirical data consists of field notes, interviews with the nursery school manager and the two senior preschool teachers as well as video footage of teacher-assigned activities, circle time and free play.

Analysis of the empirical material was conducted in five steps. The first step identified all situations that included exploration of letters, and the second step described the situations. The third step examined how the teachers used visual and auditory resources such as hand signs, pictures and spoken words. The fourth step examined how the children explored letters during free play, and how visual resources and hearing resources were used. The fifth and final step identified typical characteristics using visual resources and hearing resources.

Kristoffersen, A., Simonsen, E. (2014). ”Exploring Letters in a Bimodal, Bilingual Nursery School with Deaf and Hearing Children”. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 22 (5), 604-620.