The beliefs and practices of itinerant teachers of deaf and hard of hearing children about literacy development

Abstract

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine the beliefs and practices of itinerant teachers of deaf and hard of hearing (d/hh) students about literacy development. The study examined the match between the itinerant teachers' beliefs and their practices match and the effects of the itinerant setting on beliefs and practices. These are important questions in the field as so many d/hh students are currently enrolled in public school settings. Five itinerant teachers participated in the study and met the following criteria: spend 70% or more of their time providing itinerant services and who serve two or more elementary schools, provide itinerant services to elementary age d/hh students, have at least five years of teaching experience with two or more years spent as an itinerant, and located within a 150 mile radius of Tucson, Arizona. A series of three interviews and four observations were completed with each teacher. The qualitative analysis program QSR Nudist 4 (2000) was used initially to analyze all of the data from the interviews and observations. This was followed by at least four readings of the original transcripts, once for each research question. Conclusions were drawn and similar patterns, phrases, ideas and themes were labeled and indexed. The teachers believe that d/hh students develop literacy in similar ways to hearing children if they have a strong language base. They also find it valuable to have a broad knowledge of literacy development for hearing children in order to identify gaps that d/hh students might have. The teachers use a combination of service delivery models, pull-out and in-class. The teachers use a combination of meaning-centered and skills-based models and a wide variety of practices for developing literacy. The majority of the teachers' beliefs match their practices. A number of specific effects of the itinerant setting affect the teachers' practices including: support from team members, space, consistency of student sessions, isolation, availability of resources, time, student teacher ratio, ownership of students and programming, and flexibility. Importance of the findings and their implications are discussed.