The Science Writing of Deaf Developing Bilinguals

Disciplinary literacy (DL) is an important facet of adolescent literacy development. However, for adolescents who struggle with literacy, opportunities to engage with DL and advanced concepts are often withheld in favor of focus on basic skills. Deaf or hard-of-hearing (dhh) children, for example, are at a higher risk for experiencing language deprivation due to limited access to language. Rather than waiting to introduce DL skills and advanced content, literacy skills can be taught within disciplinary contexts using tools that draw attention to students' language and literacy needs. As an illustration, science writing of dhh adolescents was evaluated by individuals in deaf-related fields and science-related fields. This has implications for teachers of language learners, especially those who are dhh. For example, the students' writing demonstrated that though these students are still developing their knowledge of English, they are using a number of features of DL to demonstrate their content knowledge.