Unlocking the Curriculum
Johnson et al.
f. cognitive development
g. socio-emotional development
h. motor skills development
Preschool-Kindergarten
The aim of this curriculum is to provide preschool and kindergarten environments which
are geared to the continued development of the child and provide exposure and training equivalent
to that found for their hearing peers. The content is designed to ready the children to enter primary
school.
Beginning in the Preschool and continuing throughout the grades, every classroom will be
staffed by both a deaf teacher and a hearing teacher who signs fluently. Both will be equally
responsible for the conduct of the classroom and for teaching the non-linguistic aspects of the
curriculum. In addition, the deaf teacher will be the native model for the acquisition and
development of ASL proficiency and the hearing teacher will be the native model for the
acquisition and development of English proficiency. Each will be a model of the sort of bilingual
person the program is designed to produce. The apparent additional cost of two teachers in the
classroom will be offset by doubling the number of students in classes (to an average class size of
16).
1. Program Content:
a. ASL acquisition
b. play groups with focus on language development
c. reading skills
d. speech skills
e. auditory stimulation
f. cognitive development
g. socio-emotional development
h. motor skills development
Grades 1 - 12
The goal in this component is to have deaf students (on-average) acquire exactly the same
curricular content as their hearing peers. In order to achieve this goal, American Sign Language
will be the primary language of instruction throughout the program. English will be introduced
and taught as a second language, beginning in the first grade. The section of the program devoted
to the acquisition of English language reading and writing skills will require special classroom
materials, the development of which will be overseen by the curriculum developer. Speech and
auditory training will continue on an individualized basis.
Through the grades, there will be an increasing role of English as a vehicle of instruction,
primarily through the reading of textual material. Written English combined with explanation and
translation in ASL will be used to achieve competence in English as a second language. Primary
emphasis will be on the achievement of literacy in English with the teaching of speaking and
lipreading skills dependent on prior acquisition of literacy. In general, at-grade-level reading
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