Abstract:

Literacy and Hearing-Impaired Students:
Students’ reading and writing skills are developed with the help of reading comprehension activities as well as oral and written activities rich in content. Studies demonstrated that these skills are important for the development of reading and writing and that they should be developed in accordance with the needs and language levels of students. Hearing-impaired students learn a language in a process similar to the one followed by their hearing peers. However, due to the linguistic limitations of hearing-impaired students, their language development is slower than that of their hearing peers. Hearing-impaired students need direct teaching of reading and writing strategies, more repetition and more practice regarding meaning and contexts when compared to their hearing peers. Linguistic limitations of hearing-impaired students also have negative influence on their academic development when compared to their hearing peers.

Literacy Approaches and Writing Workshop:
Whatever students’ levels of reading-writing skills and their levels of knowledge are, students will make good use of reading-writing development activities carried out intensively and systematically. There are various approaches applied for the development of reading-writing skills. Balanced Literacy Instruction (BLI), which is based on the Skill-Based Approach and on the Whole Language Approach, is now increasingly used.
BLI is based on eight reading and writing activities each of which aims at establishing connection between spoken language and written language. These activities include Reading Aloud, Shared Reading, Guided Reading, Independent Reading, Guided Writing, Shared Writing, Guided Writing and Independent Writing. These activities involve various models and strategies. Among these activities, guided writing is also called Writing Workshop (WW). In this study, it will be referred to as WW. WW is a writing activity carried out individually or with a group requiring the use of different methods (creating a map or a scheme) to organize students’ thoughts and written texts. The rationale underlying writing activities is to help students gain different experiences in their practices with real purposes regarding the subjects they are interested in. WW allows students to determine the type, subject and purpose of writing in the planning process of their writing.


In Turkey, there is limited research on the development of writing skills of hearing-impaired students, yet there is no research conducted with hearing-impaired students regarding WW. Studies carried out with hearing students demonstrate that WW studies contribute to the development of students’ writing skills. In the light of the studies conducted, WW studies to be carried for the development of the writing skills of hearing-impaired students as well as other studies examining the related process are thought to be for the benefit of these students.

Keywords:

Hearing impaired college students, literacy, writing workshop.