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Journal of Research in Special Educational Needs

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Volume 4

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Number 2

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2004 82–90doi: 10.1111/J.1471-3802.2004.00022.x

Blackwell Publishing, Ltd.Title

Current conceptions of literacy – insights from work with children and older learners with sensory needs

Linda Watson,

1

Graeme Douglas,

1

Liz Hodges,

1

Mike McLinden

1

and Nigel Hall

2

1

University of Birmingham,

2

Manchester Metropolitan University

Key words

: Literacy, sensory needs, communication.

There have been many efforts to conceptualiseliteracy, both in terms of its essence and componentparts, but it has proved difficult to define. This paperconsiders work that is undertaken with childrenand older learners with sensory needs in orderto promote the early stages of literacy. Recentgovernment initiatives aimed at fostering literacydevelopment have caused teachers of children withsensory needs to re-examine their practice. Thepaper discusses early literacy as part of children’sattempts to communicate and describes childrenwith sensory needs engaging in a range of activitiesthat are termed ‘literacy’ by those working with them.By taking into account these activities, the authorsendeavour to throw light on the broader questionsaround concepts of literacy.

Background

This paper arises from a seminar series considering theearly literacy development of children and older learnerswith deafness, visual impairment or deafblindness(multisensory impairment), funded by the Economic andSocial Research Council (ESRC). The seminar series wasconceived by a group of four lecturers in the School ofEducation at The University of Birmingham who wereworking in the disciplines of deafness, visual impairmentand deafblindness. As we began to work together andexplore commonalities and differences, we found that wewere asking some fundamental questions regarding literacyand the particular groups with which we were working. Weformulated our questions as follows:

• What do we mean when we talk about ‘early literacy’ in relation to these groups?

• Is literacy different for each area (deafness, visual impairment, deafblindness)?

• Are there other groupings that arise, for example, pupils from each of the disability areas for whom the main consideration is access to literacy?

• Is it possible to identify similarities across all three areas?

These were the questions that formed the background to thebid for the seminar series. The series’ aims were:

• to explore the concept of literacy for these groups of learners;

• to explore the nature of early literacy for these groups; and

• to investigate the early stages of literacy development across these areas.

Terminology was seen as an issue in our discussion. Wewanted to agree on a term to use when referring to the totalpopulation that might be included in our discussion. Wefinally settled on ‘sensory needs’ although this term doesnot sit happily with a definition that regards deafness as adifference rather than a disability (Reagan, 1990).

We felt that as a group we needed to achieve anunderstanding of the terminology used by different fields.One example was the term ‘functional literacy’ whichseemed to be used in different ways. Those working in thearea of visual impairment followed Koenig’s (1992)definition in which the term was used to denote a fixedpoint; whereas other participants used the term in a moregeneral way to denote the level of literacy needed for anindividual to function, which could vary from person toperson. We hoped that we might achieve some shared useof terminology, which would facilitate discussion across thethree disciplines. The attempt to harmonise the use ofterminology revealed both similarities and differences inour thinking about the concept of early literacy in relationto particular groups of learners with sensory needs.

A question that was fundamental to the series was ‘Whatdo we mean by early literacy?’ Prior to the first seminar,one participant had queried the inclusion of papers on thebeginnings of writing in a seminar on early literacy – surelythat is a later stage of literacy, he questioned? Thus fromthe outset it was evident that there was going to be livelydebate!

Given the current drive towards inclusion in the UK and thefact that pupils with sensory needs are increasingly beingeducated in mainstream settings, we considered it importantto set our discussions around early literacy development inchildren/ learners with sensory needs into the mainstreamdiscussions around early literacy. We therefore invitedNigel Hall, a specialist in early-years literacy development,

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to contribute to the series. His brief was to remind us ofcurrent thinking in mainstream discussions of early literacyand to relate some of the discussion during the seminars tothat context.

Introduction

The meaning of the word ‘literacy’ has proved highlycontestable. Indeed its use in connection with children isextremely recent, dating back only to the 1980s (Gillen &Hall, 2003). Prior to this, the terms reading and writingwere used although most emphasis was on reading.Clearly this conventional notion still underpins theNational Literacy Strategy (NLS) which defines literacystraightforwardly as ‘the ability to read and write’ (DfEE,1998, p. 3).

However, it is also important to note that prior to the 1980s,being a reader or a writer was a state to be achieved, andthis was normally expected to happen in schooling.Educationalists tended to describe any reading and writingactivities before schooling as ‘pre-reading’ (never pre-writing) and pre-reading activities were always devised byeducationalists and imposed upon children. Pre-readingwas something done to children. Pre-reading was alwaysbased upon a model in which reading and writing werereduced to a set of discrete subskills, mostly tending toconsist of highly discrete activities based aroundphysical, auditory and visual discrimination. Veryfrequently these activities never involved any relationshipwith the use of real literacy for real purposes. It is easy tosee why approaches to the reading and writing educationof those with sensory needs were dominated by skills-based approaches, often involving decontextualisedactivities.

However, this is an inadequate definition of the range ofactivities that may be included in a concept of literacy incurrent society. From the 1980s a revolution has taken placein the understanding of literacy and this had majorimplications for understanding how young children nothaving sensory needs approach literacy. This shift was notsimply an academic one, and the recent British governmentdocuments relating to children aged 3–5 (

CurriculumGuidance for the Foundation Stage

, DfEE, 2000) and fromages 0–3 (

Birth to Three Matters: A Framework to SupportChildren in their Earliest Years

, DfEE, 2003), both stronglyreflect new understandings of the role of literacy duringearly childhood.

The first of three major moves in these changes was toreconceptualise literacy as more than a set of physicalsubskills: to recognise it as a social behaviour that invarious manifestations surrounds children from birth and isessentially associated with making and communicatingmeaning. Literacy is manifested in the physicalenvironment around children where its use is visible tochildren as their significant others use it in everyday life.

And children are often drawn into relationships withliteracy through shopping experiences, through sharing

home activities, and through their involvement in popularculture. In this way children begin to understand who usesliteracy, when it is used, where it is used, and what kindsof objects are used.

The second move was to recognise that children are notpassive recipients of literacy who ignore it until teachersdraw their attention to it. They are curious about it, beginto form ideas about how it works, and begin to participatein its use, albeit often unconventionally. Alongside the‘who’, ‘when’, ‘where’ and ‘what’ of literacy there beginsto emerge some sense of how the systems of literacyoperate. An explosion of research starting in the 1980s, andstill continuing, has demonstrated that most children seekto make sense of the nature of literacy. They have limitedexperience of it, and they bring limited experience of theworld to understanding it, but nevertheless in their own waythey develop an understanding that literacy makes senseand is a useful human activity.

The third move was to recognise that children are meaning-makers from birth as they attempt to sort out how theworld works and, more importantly, they begin to use theirunderstanding to act upon the world. This ‘acting’ includesthe use of literacy. What had previously been arrogantlydismissed by adults, especially researchers, as meaninglessscribbles and drawings, were now understood as earlymoves to recreate meaning-making systems, sometimeswriting, sometimes other graphic ways of expressingmeanings (Kress, 1997). Children bring to this graphicmeaning-making the knowledge that they have at the time,just as do all adults.

Being literate is not an absolute state. Anyone reading thispaper would be termed a literate person, but all willunderstand that their own literacy knowledge could quiteeasily be challenged by being presented with a verycomplex meaning-making task.

This new approach does not position very young childrenas illiterate or pre-literate, but as people seeking to useliteracy as they understand it at any given time. In their ownways, and given the particular social experiences they havehad, they seek to make meaning as efficiently as possibleby drawing on a repertoire of resources, materials, marks,symbols, movements and languages. They understand theirefforts as highly meaningful and respond to the effortsof others as highly meaningful (Lancaster, 2003). Aschildren’s experience develops so their knowledge of itincreases, and later, as teachers, we will endeavour to helpthem understand some of the more abstract principlesinvolved in advanced literacy behaviours. But, we can nowrecognise these early efforts as literacy, not as someinsignificant and childish misrepresentation of literacy. TheBritish government documents referred to above acceptthis. The

Birth to Three Matters

document has a sectiontitled ‘The child as a skilful communicator’, while theFoundation Stage document has a major section entitled,‘Communication, language and literacy’. Both sectionsindicate that early literacy experiences must be meaningful

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and occur in a social context. Both documents acknowledgethat efforts to be communicators are multimodal and thatchildren’s efforts to express themselves in any mediummust be recognised and encouraged. The critical questionfor the seminar group was whether this reconceptualisingof early child literacy had implications for the early literacyeducation of children and older learners with sensoryneeds.

These new understandings broaden both conceptually andchronologically notions of literacy. Instead of being aparticular set of discrete skills that are taught when a childis five, literacy

becomes a more general process that isemerging very early in childhood. Literacy is no longernecessarily about acquiring a set of formal literacy skills,however much the National Literacy Strategy might seek toposition literacy in this way. These new understandingsallow educators of children with sensory needs to viewliteracy more broadly; they legitimise the provision of awhole range of meaning-making experiences as part of anearly literacy curriculum and acknowledge that the earliestefforts of children or older learners to communicate usingany kind of expression, symbol, sign, or material can berecognised as a literacy activity. In the past there has beenan understandable tendency for children with sensoryneeds to be given skills-based experiences as a form ofcompensation for the sense or senses in which they arelimited. This might still be appropriate, but skills have to beexperienced in a social context, in situations where the‘who’, ‘when’, ‘where’ and ‘what’ of their nature and usecan be experienced. At its lowest level this is aboutmotivation. If we understand something about the natureand purpose of an activity, then we may persist longer inlearning it when the understandings of it become moreabstract, decontextualised and complex.

At a higher level,through this contextualisation and through approximationsof meaning-making, ideas, notions, and concepts aboutliteracy are developing. They are then there to be built onby later, more formal, experiences. Children withoutsensory needs spend a lot of time working out what literacyis and why it is important to people. How much moreimportant it is to allow additional time and experiencesthat can help children with sensory needs achieve aconceptual grasp of the nature of literacy. Educatorsmay have to be imaginative in the ways they createappropriate experiences, but helping these children seeliteracy as meaningful is fundamental (Booth & Hall,1988). For all children, but especially children with sensoryneeds, the basics of literacy are not isolated, discrete skills,but knowing that literacy makes a difference to humanlives.

The current political climate in the UK demands thatstandards of literacy, as evidenced by attainments inNational Curriculum tests at the end of Key Stage 2 (i.e.,when pupils are aged 11) should improve (Literacy TaskForce, 1997). This has led to what might be termed anarrow, skills-based interpretation of literacy being adoptedin schools, encouraged by the introduction of the NationalLiteracy Strategy as discussed above. At the same time,

however, practitioners have been arguing in favour of awider interpretation of literacy, one that encompasses abroader range of activities and is thus more attuned to thedrive for inclusion of children with severe or complexneeds (McCall & McLinden, 1997). Thus there is currentlya tension between the thrust of the NLS and the movetowards greater inclusion (Miller, Lacey & Layton, 2003).

Roberts (1995) has argued that attempts to define literacyhave produced a staggering number and variety ofdefinitions, none of which has proved adequate for allsituations. Thus, he concluded, ‘There can never be asingle, fixed, timeless definition of literacy’ (p. 425). Thisview of literacy resonates with both the rethinking referredto above in relation to children without sensory needs andthe experience of researchers and practitioners participatingin the seminar who were working with children and olderlearners with sensory needs.

The discussion of the reconceptualising of literacydiscussed above proved to be a helpful way to begin toconsider aspects of practice with pupils with sensory needs.This description of literacy could be restated as anunderstanding of the concept of literacy and the technicalaspects of how this is accomplished. Even this distinction,however, still presupposes a common understanding ofliteracy, an ‘essence’ or ‘core meaning’ (Roberts, 1995).Work with some learners with significant sensory andadditional needs, which formed part of our discussion inthe seminars, explores some of the early efforts atcommunication that, as we have argued above, canlegitimately be described as ‘literacy activities’ and alsoraises other questions.

A fundamental question to be addressed during the firstseminar was ‘What do we mean by early literacy?’ Thisbrings together the ‘what’ question posed above andanother consideration, namely whether the answer to thisquestion may be different for different individuals orgroups. In setting the context for the series, it wassuggested that it might mean any or all of the following:

• Pre-intentional or early intentional communicative behaviour

• Use of symbols• Marks on a page and intentional interaction with books• Beginning of decoding of print and writing of

recognisable words

In considering these questions during the seminar, someaspects of literacy began to assume more importance thanothers for the children in question. Whereas for pupilswithout sensory needs literacy will not usually be their first,or primary, means of communication, the situation may bedifferent for some pupils with sensory needs. Whilst pupilsin a literate society are likely to exhibit some aspects ofearly literacy behaviour whilst their primary (usuallyspoken) language is developing, the bulk of their literacydevelopment will follow in the wake of their developmentof spoken language and will usually map onto it. There

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may be some exceptions to this: for example, childrenwhose home language does not have a written form need touse a different language for the purposes of literacy, aswould be the case for children of deaf parents who learnsign language as their first language. Allowing for suchexceptions, however, the situation described above obtainsfor the majority of children without sensory needs.

For children with sensory needs, however, the situation maybe different. For them, literacy may not be an alternativemeans of communication that they can choose to use inplace of their primary means of communication. It may betheir sole means of communication; the first form ofcommunication that they develop; or one of a range ofcommunication strategies on which they can draw. Literacymay remain their primary means of communication; it maydevelop in parallel with other means of communication orit may lead into other forms of communication. Thusliteracy may be a vehicle

for

communication rather than achoice of mode of communication. These differencesbetween children with sensory needs and those withoutsensory needs were reflected in the presentations that weremade during the seminar and began to be expressed andexplored.

A number of presentations related to the ‘how’ of literacy.For some children or older learners with sensory needs, theissues may involve the question of access to literacy. Pupilsusing braille may grasp the function of literacy but need tobe taught it differently (a question of pedagogy). If they arebeing taught Grade 2 braille, they will need to learnvocabulary in an order that facilitates the learning of braillecontractions. For pupils with deafness, who are developingBritish Sign Language (BSL) as their primary means ofcommunication, the challenge becomes how to assist themin developing literacy in English without access to thephonology of English and without necessarily learningspoken English. These conditions are similar to those thatobtain for some hearing children whose home languagedoes not have a written form, but the issues are somewhatdifferent on account of the fact that they are using adifferent mode of communication (visual /spatial) as well asa different language. Thus the challenge for these pupils isto promote their literacy development by providingconditions that are nurturing for literacy and enable access(Watson, 1999). Literacy may represent an important aspectof communication for them later, under certain conditions.For example, text messaging may replace telephoneconversation for deaf adults, but it does not form theirprimary route to communication.

Other presentations, however, related to literacy andcommunication and demonstrated the difficulty in finding asingle definition of literacy, a quest that Roberts (1995)suggests may be a ‘red herring’ as there are many differentforms of literacy.

The presentations were important in bringing out some ofthe issues, which could be explored further in laterseminars. They served to help us grasp the range of issues

and themes as described above. They are presented hereunder the following broad categories: literacy/communicationboundaries; literacy as part of Total Communication; printas the first access to communication; literacy and literature;literacy and the concept of story, and language and literacy.The case studies presented here relate predominantly tochildren and older learners with deafblindness or sensoryimpairment with complex needs. These proved to be thepupils around whom discussions regarding the nature ofearly literacy were centred.

Literacy/communication boundaries

Recent changes in educational practice suggest thatpractitioners working with children or older learners withsensory needs are continually reappraising how theboundaries of literacy/communication are to be defined. Anillustration from practice with children with sensoryimpairments and additional needs would be the progressionfrom the use of a concrete object to an increasingly abstractsymbol to request a drink:

• real cup used to request drink• real cup to represent activity ‘drink’• photograph of real cup• drawing of real cup• line representation of cup• formal abstract code – print /braille /Moon ‘cup’.

The question that then arises is ‘At what point in thisprogression might a particular behaviour be termed“literacy”?’ Case Study 1 illustrates a changed perspectiveon the part of her teacher.

Case Study 1Anna is five. She is generally described as ‘deafblind’; shehas some residual hearing, mainly for low sounds. Thisgives her an awareness of some environmental sounds butshe cannot hear speech. She does not tolerate hearing aidsvery well, and even the most powerful aids are of limitedbenefit. She also has some residual vision. She uses a rangeof ‘communication’ systems, BSL, hand-on-hand signs,photos, pictures, picture symbols, speech, braille, objectsymbols. Whilst these skills are developed throughout thecurriculum, they are taught directly during lessons that aretimetabled ‘communication development’.

By the time Anna reaches the age of 10, she still uses asimilar range of communication systems. She has madesome progress in the use of object symbols and limitedprogress in braille. These skills are now taught duringlessons that are timetabled as ‘communication and literacydevelopment’.

The activities are similar but the teacher’s description ofthose activities has changed. A broader concept of whatconstitutes ‘literacy’ now includes activities that wouldpreviously have been classified as ‘communication’. Asignificant factor in this change might be the introductionof the National Literacy Strategy and the wish to include allpupils in the Literacy Hour (Layton & Miller, 2004).

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Case Study 2 further illustrates the literacy/communicationdebate. In this example, written symbols and words areused for functional purposes by a learner who is unable todecode continuous text.

Case Study 2Andrew is 19. He is profoundly deaf but has some usefulvision. He has some limited communication using BSL. Hehas had little exposure to the teaching of ‘formal’ readingand writing, but can interpret some pictures and writtensymbols. He needs to develop his self-help skills. Cards aredevised with instructions for completing everyday activities.He can decide what he wants to eat, then choose a cardthat tells him what he needs to buy, using a mix of symbols,pictures and words. Having bought the ingredients, he canuse another card that gives him the cooking instructions.

In working with children and older learners with sensoryneeds, many practitioners devise their own materials andschemes of work for individual pupils. These are highlypersonalised and based on the pupil’s own experience, thuspractice may evolve first, with theory being built upon it.There are also approaches to the promotion of literacyand communication that have been formalised arounda theoretical framework. One example is the ‘maternalreflective approach’, also referred to as ‘graphicconversation’. The approach was formulated by van Uden(1977), who worked with deaf children and children withcongenital rubella syndrome. It is based on the way that anadult, in communication with a young child, will ‘seize’(van Uden’s term) what the child is trying to say, rephraseit in a more mature form and reflect it back to the child. Toaid deaf children, van Uden suggested that the conversationshould then be written down to facilitate the child’sdevelopment of language and communication. Theconversation may be written and illustrated. For pupils whoare developing spoken language, the written conversationcan be used as a ‘deposit’. An approach that is commonlyused with young deaf children is for the child to bring anitem of news from the weekend. After the lesson, theteacher writes down the conversation using the pupil’s andteacher’s own words. On subsequent days during the week,they return to the written form of the conversation and discussit, suggesting alternative words or phrases or expandingon what was originally said. As the pupil’s languagedevelopment improves, the teacher introduces discussion ofthe grammatical structure of the written conversation as ameans of promoting further language development.

For pupils with multi-sensory impairment it can also be ahelpful approach. By making clear the association betweena familiar sign, the spoken word, the written form and arepresentative drawing, it aids the pupil’s understandingand promotes learning. It can encourage spoken languageby making the conversation clearer to the pupil and providemotivation to learn to read the written word by being highlypersonalised to the learner. The written word can beintroduced gradually at a pace and time that matches thedeveloping understanding of the pupil. Case study 3 is anexample of the use of the approach with a pupil who

understands the symbolic nature of drawing but who isunable to read, sign or say the words.

Case Study 3Sarah is 10. Her mother contracted rubella whilst she waspregnant with Sarah and she was born with profounddeafness, visual impairment and severe learning difficulties.Her favourite activity is going shopping. She loves thewhole experience of the journey and the time spent in thesupermarket with its bright lights, colours, smells and manyvaried items to explore. Her class goes to the supermarketevery Wednesday.

Sarah can recognise photographs but cannot yet recognisewords. She has a photograph of the entrance to thesupermarket that her teacher took and whenever she wantsto raise the topic of shopping she produces this photograph.Her teacher, Mary, introduces a more stylised drawing of ashop and gradually Sarah is able to grasp that this drawingalso conveys the idea of shopping. Every morning onarrival at school Sarah finds the picture and brings it toMary as her way of asking whether it is the day for theirtrip to the supermarket. At the start of each day, Mary triesto give the class an understanding of what day of the weekit is, by introducing a card with the day written on it andsymbols for activities that are associated with that day. Shegives Sarah a card with a capital W on it to representWednesday. Gradually Sarah begins to realise that the twoare connected. Every morning she picks up the two cardsand compares the W with the start of the word for the dayof the week. She then makes the connection with the trip tothe supermarket.

Thus literacy and communication are seen to develop inparallel and are inseparable from one another.

Literacy as part of total communication

A motivating factor for learning literacy in a world that isdominated by print is found in the fact that it is relevant tothe individual. A great motivator for many lies in their ownnames, the names of family members, or perhaps the logoof a favourite shop. When considering work with learnerswith deafblindness and additional needs, the same processhas been found to apply. Literacy can become a part of theireveryday lives by incorporating it into an individuallytailored curriculum. The term ‘total communication’ iswidely used in connection with work with pupils withdeafness or other sensory needs. Originally used as a termto describe the philosophy of talking and signingsimultaneously (Denton, 1976), it has come to be used todescribe a wide range of practices of which the mostappropriate are used with each individual. This rangeincludes speech and a whole list of other behaviours,including visual /tactile codes such as braille, Moon, Bliss;signing systems such as Sign Supported English, Makaton,deafblind alphabet; sign language, e.g., British SignLanguage (BSL); less formalised systems such as gestureor mime; pictures or photographs and writing. Thus writingis included alongside these other forms of communication(Baker & Knight, 1998).

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Print as the first access to communication

For some pupils with sensory needs, print may act as thefirst access to language. This was true in Case Study 4.

Case Study 4David is 8. He is described as deafblind. Despite intensivework on developing communication skills, he has failed tobegin to develop either speech or sign. His teacher, Anne,in discussion with colleagues, decides to introduce objectsand pictures of reference. These are to be used asscaffolding his transition to formal communication in theexpectation that this will lead him towards the use of BSL.Gradually David grasps the concept of using objects ofreference. He finds his swimming trunks when he wants togo swimming. But he makes no attempt to produce the wordor sign for swim. In place of using the actual swimmingtrunks, a picture of swimming trunks is used to representswimming and David begins to find the picture instead ofthe actual object. At this point his teacher wonders whetherthis can lead him to print as a means of communication.She writes the word ‘swim’ but with the letter ‘w’ replacedby a picture of swimming trunks. Once David hasunderstood that this mix of letters and picture representsswimming, she replaces the picture of the swimming trunkswith a letter ‘w’ and he now uses a card with the word‘swim’ on it to communicate around the topic of swimming.

Staff at the school begin to introduce other words in asimilar way and David’s repertoire gradually increases. Hethen starts to develop his own written form of words. Theyare composed of English letters and are stable in their usebut could not be described as English words. One word is‘lilionges’. David uses this consistently to represent thesame object. He knows what it means. It seems that hechose the letters he would use and kept with them.

In this regard his exploration of language followed a similarpattern to that of children learning to talk as many infantswill consistently use their own invented ‘word’ to representan object or action.

This brings the argument back to the original discussionregarding the boundary between literacy and communication.The work outlined above demonstrates the acknowledgementof a wider repertoire of behaviours that might be consideredliteracy. Case studies of young children with sensoryneeds challenge ‘commonsense’ notions of early literacydevelopment. They show that progress does not necessarilyoccur in a linear manner and the end result may not bereading and writing in the conventional sense.

Can it therefore still be justifiably termed ‘literacy’? It isnot always easy to map observed behaviours onto apreconceived framework of literacy development, yet thereare links that can be made. There are common strands indefinitions of early communication development that couldalso refer to early literacy development:

• Progression – increasingly active role of the child• Increasing control over the environment

• A two-way process• Conventional/non-conventional modes of expression• Pre-intentional to intentional communication• Need for reactive environment.

Communicative competence has a recognised sequence ofdevelopment from pre-intentional to symbolic behaviour asfollows (Rowland & Schweigert, 1989):

1. pre-intentional behaviour e.g. cry2. intentional behaviour e.g. regard/reach3. non-conventional pre-symbolic e.g. whine/tug4. conventional pre-symbolic e.g. point/nod5. concrete symbolic e.g. object symbols6. abstract symbolic e.g. symbols7. formal symbolic e.g. combination of

symbols

There are clear parallels to be drawn between this and earlyliteracy. The juncture at which there can be a crossoverbetween the two may be placed at different points bydifferent practitioners.

This point was made during discussion with participants inthe seminar. One participant suggested that literacy was anew quality of communication. Recent government initiativessuch as the introduction of the literacy strategy have forcedpractitioners to reconsider their practice. For some this hasmeant adapting their practice to fit the imposed structure(as discussed by Miller et al., 2003), but others saw theliteracy strategy as legitimising their existing practice.

These presentations informed our discussion aboutdefinitions of literacy. They uncovered different patterns ofusage for the term ‘early literacy’ and demonstrated a lackof agreement over the concept, which mirrored thediscussions in the area of ‘mainstream’ literacy consideredin the introduction. It would have been possible to simplyconclude with Roberts (1995) that ‘literacy, it seemscan mean whatever people want it to mean’ (p. 419), yetthere seemed to be further considerations that presentedthemselves in relation to the population of children andolder learners whom we were discussing. There was thequestion of access to literacy and how this could beenhanced for pupils with deafness, visual impairment ordeafblindness. For some pupils, access to literacy mightcome via access to literature.

Literacy and literature

In Case Study 2, the young adult was able to engage withone aspect of literacy, the ability to engage with a symboliccode that was presented as text, but he was not decodingcontinuous text or engaging with literature. For other pupils,engagement with literature precedes an understanding ofthe nature of written symbols, for example, the class in CaseStudy 5.

Case Study 5A class of eight pupils aged between 10 and 14 withmultisensory impairment are taken to the theatre. They

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gather on the stage, where they can lie on the wooden boardsif they wish so that they can feel the resonance of the actionthat is to come. A scene from Shakespeare’s ‘A MidsummerNight’s Dream’ has been chosen as the play. It is the scenein which Titania, having had a spell cast on her, awakesand falls in love with Bottom, wearing the head of a donkey.

The scene begins with Titania snoring. Those pupils whoare able to do so join in making the snoring noises. Othersuse a Voice Output Communication Aid – they move aswitch which activates the recording of a snoring noise.This is followed by someone speaking the words fromShakespeare:

What thou seest when thou dost wakeDo it for thy true-love takeWhen thou wakest it is thy dearWake when some vile thing is near

The pupils then make the braying sounds of a donkey ‘eeeorr’, gradually increasing in volume. As the sequence isperformed in a call and response mode, it involves turn-taking, anticipation and cause and effect.

These pupils may not have any speech, neither could theyengage with text, yet they can join in experiencing theatmosphere, story line and language of literature. Theextent to which they understand the language used is notthe main issue. Literature is being used as a stimulus forcommunication and as a means of enjoyment.

Literacy and the concept of story

There are many different facets to early literacydevelopment. Some of these would formerly have beentermed ‘precursors’ to literacy or ‘pre-reading’ behaviours,but in the context of the current discussion they are seen aspart of literacy. The concept of ‘story’ is one of them. Itallows children, when approaching reading and writing topredict what might happen or to compose a text of theirown that incorporates cause and effect; has a beginning, amiddle and an end; and uses standardised language ofbooks, for example, ‘once upon a time’ and ‘the end’. Howdo children gain this concept of story? It may come throughthe experience of having stories read to them from a book;of listening to stories on cassette; of watching videos ofstories. In early-years classes, a story will frequently beenacted with props and simple costumes, a ‘story bag’ canbe used that includes a story book and the associated props.A story can be used as the basis for developing a range ofskills, as in Case Study 6.

Case Study 6Jane is one of a class of six pupils, whose ages range from8–10 years. Jane is deafblind with learning difficulties, othermembers of the class have some form of sensory impairmentand learning difficulties. None of the children has anyformal communication skills. Their teacher, Sue, introducesthe story of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. She usesthe same order, with the same music and action to introducethe change of each scene. Each scene builds in excitement

until the children finally reach the chocolate river – achance to plunge their hands into a bowl of chocolate!

The use of the story had these features:

• A narrative framework• A repetitive poem-like structure• Building excitement• Used repetition and sequencing• Used early symbolic understanding• No writing/recording involved• No book was used.

Language and literacy

The examples given above have begun to explore thequestion of the literacy/communication boundary: the useof literacy (including words, pictures and symbols) forpurposes of communication and literacy-related activities inthe context of literacy and communication.

For children and older learners with deafness, visualimpairment or deafblindness, literacy, however it is defined,may emerge in parallel with the development of language andcommunication, or as part of that process. Traditionally,literacy has been viewed as a ‘second order symbolism’that is taught after children have learnt their primarylanguage so it maps onto their first language (Lewis, 1998).Work with young deaf children shows the emergence ofliteracy within the child’s social context. Case Study 7

Figure 1: Mummy with 4 m’s, plus a jumble of lettersand numbers (meaning uncertain)

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includes examples of the beginnings of writing in the workof young deaf children whose spoken language developmentis still in its early stages.

Case Study 7

Figures 1 and 2 show two examples of young deafchildren’s early attempts at writing.

These young deaf children are not waiting until they cantalk to start to write, neither are they holding back until theyreceive teaching in literacy at school. They show that theyhave some concept of the nature of writing and are starting

to use it in a meaningful way although their understandingis still limited.

Conclusion

The examples given in this paper demonstrate pupils andolder learners with sensory needs engaging in a range ofactivities that are termed ‘literacy’ by those working withthem. In so doing, they contribute to the ongoing debatearound definitions of literacy as well as showing some ofthe challenges faced by those working with pupils withsensory needs. Recent government initiatives in Englanddesigned to raise standards of literacy, for example, theNational Literacy Strategy, have encouraged teachers ofchildren with sensory needs to re-examine their practice.The answers should, in turn, encourage others to re-examine their own practice. Further work is planned tobuild on the material presented here, to consider advicegiven to parents and others involved with young childrenand older learners who are engaging in early literacyactivities, and to investigate the activities that parents ofthese children carry out at home to foster early literacy.

Acknowledgement

This paper is based on the ESRC grant RRA108759.

Views expressed by the contributors to this journal are their ownand do not necessarily reflect the policies and opinions either

of the authorities by whom they are employed or of NASEN.

Address for correspondence

Linda Watson, School of Education, The University of Birmingham, Birmingham, BI5 2TT, UK. Email: l.m.watson@bham.ac.uk

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