I recently found this great website called OIC Movies. It is basically a television channel that uses ASL as the main form of communication. This would be an excellent website to introduce to a deaf child who signs. Most of you who are reading this are probably thinking, "I'm a general education teacher. I'll never have a deaf child in my classroom." However, over 90% of deaf children are now being mainstreamed so there is a good likelyhood that you might have a deaf child in your classroom.
Often children in deaf classrooms use Signed English, which is similar to ASL, but uses a lot of different signs and a very different word order. Therefore, by showing children videos using ASL, you can familiarize them with the langague that they will be encountering for the rest of their lives and not simply the "school language."
This website has news, entertainment, money, health, tech and science, travel, public service, and opinion channels. Therefore, no matter what your children's interests are, there is something there that might appeal to them. Imagine if you could give a deaf child homework that was to go home and watch a science show in their own first language. I am a firm believer that you need to make homework interesting, relatable, and relevant to students. It is only then that you are going to be able to engage students in learning the material that you are presenting them with.
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Thank you for the great site! I am a special ed major as well, but I am learning disabled. But I too know that many students are now being included into the general ed classroom so it is very important to be able to help all students needs.
ReplyDeleteI have bookmarked this site for future references! thanks!
I'm glad that you found this website to be helpful! It's really cool that you are Speial Ed-LD, and I am Deaf Ed, but we can both benefit from eachother's resources, because chances are that I will have some LD students in my future classroom, and someday you may have a deaf student in your classroom too!
ReplyDeleteGreat find Jenna, I'll keep this site in mind while doing my internship and in the future. I have been trying to find children's books that are signed, but can only find British signing sites. The programs they have in Britain are very good though, I'll keep you updated if I come across anything similar.
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