The Wh Questions of Visual Phonics: What, Who, Where, When, and Why

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JournalofDeafStudiesandDeafEducation

The ‘‘Wh’’ Questions of

Visual

Phonics

: What, Who, Where,

When, and Why

Rachel F. Narr*

,1

, Stephanie W. Cawthon

2

1_California_State_University,_Northridge

2_University_of_Texas,_Austin

ReceivedMarch17,2010;revisionsreceivedAugust5,2010;acceptedAugust6,2010

Visual Phonics isa readinginstructional toolthathas been implementedinisolatedclassroomsforover20years.Inthe past5 years,severalexperimental studiesdemonstratedits efficacy with students who are deaf or hard of hearing. Throughanationalsurveywith200participants,thisstudy specificallyaddresseswho,where,how,andwhyasampleof teachersuseVisual Phonics intheireverydayreading instruc-tion.Through checklistsofteachingpractice,rating scales, and open-endedquestions,teachers self-reportedtheiruse ofVisual Phonics,reflecteduponitsefficacy,andwhatthey think about using it with students with a diverse set of instructionalneeds.ThemajorityreportedthatVisual Pho-nics was easy to use, engaging to students, and easy to integrateintoastructuredreadingcurriculum.Themajority of respondents agreed that it helps increase phonemic awareness and decoding skills,buildvocabulary, aswellas increasereadingcomprehension.The implicationsof these findings in bridging the research-to-practice gap are discussed.

Learningtoreadisacomplexprocessthatisacquired

withlittleeffortbymanychildrenwhenthereisa

con-vergence of optimal conditions, most importantly

stronglanguageskills,duringtheirearlyyears.In

con-trast, learningtoreadcan beadauntingprospectfor

someyoungchildren,particularlythoseidentiﬁedwith

special needs. Effective reading instruction requires

a strongtheoreticalknowledge base; for typically

de-velopingchildren,teachingreadingcanbe

straightfor-ward and implemented according tostate-prescribed

standards anddistrictcurriculum. However,teaching

reading can bedaunting ifthere is not an alignment

*CorrespondenceshouldbesenttoRachelF.Narr,Departmentof Spe-cialEducation,MichaelD.EisnerCollegeofEducation,CaliforniaState University,Northridge,18111NordhoffStreet,Northridge,CA 91330-8265(e-mail:[email protected]).

betweentheinstructional approach andthe language

skillsofthestudents.Teachersofstudentswithspecial

needs, like their counterparts in general education,

frequently ﬁnd creative ways to adapt, modify, and

supplementthecurriculumtomakeitmostaccessible

totheirstudents.Thisprocessofmodifyingand

sup-plementing materials is particularly frequent for

teachersofdeaforhard-of-hearing(DHH)students.

TheuseofVisual Phonics isanimportantexample

ofhow teachers have adapted phonics-basedreading

instructionforDHHstudents.See-the-Sound/Visual

Phonics is a multisensory system of hand cues and

writtensymbolsusedtosupplement anyreading

cur-riculumor readingmethod.Thehand-cuesarevisual

andtactilerepresentationsofphonemesandareused

to convey phonemic information about phonemes

withinwords.Forexample,thespokenwordtoe would

berepresentedusingthehandcuesforthephonemes

/t/and /o/.The /t/ is represented by ﬂicking the

index ﬁnger off of the thumb, in the area near the

mouth, with palm facing forward. This ‘‘ﬂicking’’

movement of the index ﬁnger kinesthetically

repre-sentswhat thetonguedoesinthemouthwhen

artic-ulating the phoneme /t/. That said, articulatory

production (voiced or unvoiced) is helpful but not

requiredtoperceivethehandcues.Thewritten

sym-bolscan be used todemonstrate spelling patterns or

phoneticwordstructure.TeacherslearntouseVisual

Phonics throughprofessionaldevelopmentprovidedby

licensed trainers sanctioned through International

CommunicationsLearningInstitute(ICLI),the

orga-nizationthatownstherightstoVisual Phonics.

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TheAuthor2010.PublishedbyOxfordUniversityPress.Allrightsreserved. doi:10.1093/deafed/enq038

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Visual Phonics isatoolthathasbeenimplemented

inisolatedclassroomsfor over20years,butuntil

re-cently,usedwithoutthesupportofempiricalevidence.

Its attraction and implementation has instead been

basedlargelyonanecdotalsupport.Althoughteachers

aretaughttouseitthroughformaltraining,little

pub-lishedinformation reports theefﬁcacyofVisual

Pho-nics with DHH students. Recent experimental and

quasi-experimental studies demonstrate the potential

positive impact that Visual Phonics has on reading

achievement when it is used with systematic and

explicit reading instruction (Narr, 2008; Trezek &

Malmgren, 2005; Trezek & Wang, 2006; Trezek

et al., 2007). Although this research evidence adds

signiﬁcantlytoour understandingofhowVisual

Pho-nics can be used in speciﬁc situations with speciﬁc

curricula, it does notdescribe the rangeof everyday

useandteachers’perceptionsofitseffectivenesswith

adiversestudent population.

Theoretical Perspective

Although teachers ofDHH studentsuse a varietyof

strategies to teach their students to read and spell,

approaching literacy instruction from a perspective

that includes phonemic awareness and phonics

in-struction is challenging with this population(Mayer,

2007;Musselman,2000;Wangetal.,2008).Theﬁrst

prerequisiteoflearningtoreadisacquisitionofstrong

expressiveandreceptivelanguageskills,eitherspoken

or signed (Chamberlain & Mayberry, 2008; Mayer,

2007). Once a foundation is built, subsequent skills

necessary for reading can be taught and acquired

(Cummins,2006;Mayer,2007).DHHstudentsoften

come to school with language delays and limited or

inconsistentexposuretospokenlanguage.Asaresult,

they are frequently faced with learning the multiple

andcomplexelementsofEnglishwhiletryingtolearn

toreadatthesametime.

Indiscussing ‘‘What matters mostin theliteracy

development of young deaf children,’’ Mayer (2007)

asks researchers to focus ‘‘attention to the ways in

which we can help children to solve the phonologic

problem ofspoken languageinways thatmake sense

forchildrenwhoaredeaf’’(p.424).Wangetal.(2008)

support the instruction of teaching phonemic

awareness and phonics, citing recent intervention

studiesdemonstratingtheeffectivenessofusingVisual

Phonics in phonics-based reading instruction. Visual Phonics can be used as the tool to help address the

problemofmaking English text(inherently based on

spokenlanguage)moretransparenttoDHHstudents.

At the same time, however, other researchers are

providingevidencethatsuggestsphonemicawareness

and phonics-based strategies may not be critical for

the reading success of deaf learners (Allen et al.,

2009). In the context of these continued questions,

teachers and researchers need to explore and use a

varietyofstrategiesthatmeetDHHlearners’needs.

In a comprehensive review of the literature on

reading development and reading instruction,

SchirmerandMcGough(2005)foundonlyonestudy

thatsoughttoteach phonemicawarenessandexamine

itseffectsonreadingwithDHHstudents.Thatstudy

providednoinformation about thestrategies used to

teach phonemicawareness; therefore, no conclusions

were possible (Schirmer & McGough, 2005).

SchirmerandMcGoughalso foundnostudies to

in-cludein their reviewthat examinedphonics

instruc-tionwithDHHstudents.Sincethat2005publication,

Trezek andcolleagueshave publishedseveral studies

providingstrongcorrelationalevidence between

pho-nicsinstruction andreadingskillsforDHH students

(Trezek & Malmgren, 2005; Trezek & Wang, 2006;

Trezeketal.,2007).Luckneret al.(2005/2006)

spe-ciﬁcally examinedliteracy research indeaf education

andfoundobstructedaccesstothephonologicalcode

asoneoftheﬁve mostfrequently citedchallengesin

theﬁeld.Itisclearthateventhoughteachersmayhave

evidence that shows teaching phonologicalawareness

andphonicsskillsareimportantindevelopingliteracy

skillsfor DHH students,how to dothat with DHH

studentsisaconsistentchallenge.

Purpose of Study

The purpose of this study was to investigate how

asampleofteachersuseVisual Phonics intheir

every-dayreadinginstruction.Thestudyattemptedtobetter

understandteachers’ perceived beneﬁts ofitsuse for

students with diverse characteristics. The speciﬁc

questionsthatguided thisinquiry were

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1. Whatistheprofessionalbackgroundofteachers whouseVisual Phonics?

2. Inwhatways doteachers useVisual Phonics to

teachreadingtotheirstudents?

3. What are the characteristics of students for

whom Visual Phonics is thought to be most beneﬁcial?

4. What are teachers’ perspectives on the

strengthsandweaknessesofVisual Phonics?

Methods

This study used a mixed-methods survey to collect

informationfromteacherswhouseVisual Phonics with

theirstudents.Thesurveywasinitiallyavailablefor4

months, between October 1, 2008, and January 31,

2009,with alater extensionofthesurveytoincrease

theresponserate,untilMay2009.

RecruitmentandSample Size

The survey instrument was administered online via

theInternetusinghttp://surveymonkey.com. Survey

participantswere recruitedthrough e-mailstoVisual

Phonics trainers, witha focus on national

dissemina-tiontotheteacherstheyhadthentrained.Itislikely

that manyof theparticipants did not know whowas

speciﬁcallyconductingthesurveyresearchastrainers

were requested to send an email and a short note

asking their trainees to participatein thesurvey. No

other directionswere provided. The survey wasalso

disseminatedon amore limited basis bytheprimary

authorwhoisaVisual Phonics Traineronherwebsite

and through emails to teachers she has trained.

Participants provided informed consent and were

informed that all their personal information would

remain anonymous. In no cases were any responses

matched with a particular individual. An incentive

for participation wasentry in a random drawing for

one of two $50.00gift cards upon completion ofthe

survey.Initially,230participantscompletedthesurvey.

Inclusion criteria included provision of consent and

responsesdemonstratingtheyactuallyusedVisual

Pho-nics in theirinstruction. Those who did not meetall

thecriteriawereremovedfromthesample.Intheend,

responsesfrom200participantswereusedforanalysis.

SurveyInstrument

Thesurveyformatincludedmultiplechoice,checklist,

Likertscale,andopen-endedresponseitems.The

de-mographics section of the survey focused on the

participants’ own training, including their role,

credentials they held, and years of experience both

overall and speciﬁcally using Visual Phonics.

Partici-pants responded to additional questions about the

kind ofVisual Phonics trainingtheyreceived.

Demo-graphics questions also focused on participants’

students.Participantscompletedachecklistof

charac-teristicsofstudentsthattheyhadused Visual Phonics

with,bothinthecurrentschoolyear(2008–09)andin

previous years. Student demographic characteristics

included grade range (e.g., pre-K, elementary

grades), disability status, and English Language

Learnerstatus.

Visual Phonics–use variables were obtained using

aseriesof checklistswith speciﬁcinstructional areas.

Forexample, onequestionaskedparticipantsto

indi-catearangeoftasksusedwhileteachingreading,such

asphonemicawareness,phonics,spelling,vocabulary,

andspeechdevelopment.Participantscouldcheckoff

anyor allthese activitiesor addan ‘‘other’’category

withadescription.Participantsindicatedwhetherthey

usedactivitiesforanumberofdifferentstudentgroups,

includingDHH,EnglishLanguageLearners,students

withdisabilities,orstudentswithoutdisabilities.

Teacher perspectiveson what motivated them to

use Visual Phonics and related challenges were

obtained through checklists, Likert scale, and

open-ended questions. The checklists were focused on

evidencethatteachersuse todetermine the

effective-ness of Visual Phonics, such as improvements in

reading comprehension, decoding, performance on

curriculum-based measures, or level of student

engagementinreading.Thesechecklistsalso allowed

participantstodelineatebetweenstudentswith

differ-ent characteristics, using the same designations as

in the activities description, above (e.g., students

whoareDHH).Likertscaleitemsfocusedonteacher

ratingsofVisual Phonics asaninstructionalapproach,

with itemsranging from easeof use, effectivenessin

buildingvocabulary,andhelpingwithclassroom

man-agement. Finally, teachers responded to three open

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ended questions: (a) What do you like most about

Visual Phonics?; (b) What do you ﬁnd challenging

aboutVisual Phonics?;and(c)Whatwouldyouchange

about Visual Phonics? The intent of these questions

was to elicit ‘‘real-life’’ perspectives from teachers

beyond responses to the checklist and Likert scale

itemstheyprovidedintheprevioussections.

DataAnalysis

Dataanalysisapproachesvarieddependingonthe

na-tureofthesurveyquestionformat,with anemphasis

ondescriptivedata.Foritemssuchasthechecklistor

multiple-choiceitems,analysisfocusedonfrequencies

acrosstheparticipantsampleandsubtotals along

de-mographic categories. Forthe Likert scaleitems,

in-stead of using mean scores, we treated thescores as

a categorical variable. We aggregated responses by

‘‘agreedstronglyor somewhatstrongly’’aswellasby

‘‘disagreedstronglyorsomewhatstrongly.’’Again,

fre-quencies and percent of responses in each category

were run to look at distribution of responses across

ratingpoints.

The ﬁnalstepwastoanalyze thequalitativedata.

Theﬁrstauthorﬁrstreviewedalltheresponsestothe

threequestionsaboutwhattheylikedmost,what

chal-lenged them, and then recommended changes to

Visual Phonics.Theﬁrstauthorcreatedasetofinitial

categoriesforeachofthethreequestions.Aniterative

processofdeleting,revising,andrenamingcategories

ensueduntilnonewideasorthemesemerged.A

sub-setof15%oftheresponseswasgiventoasecondrater

who is a reading specialist and had been previously

trained in Visual Phonics. She evaluated the coding

schemeandworked with theﬁrst author toestablish

interrater reliability. The second rater was blind to

each itemthat wasinitiallycodedby theﬁrstauthor.

Theﬁrstauthorprovided deﬁnitionsandexamplesof

codesforthesecondratertouseinherreviewofthe

reliabilitysample.Thesecondratercodedthe

reliabil-itysampleandmadenotesasissuesaroseorwhereshe

thought a different or additional code might be

needed.Initialcodingreliabilityfor eachofthethree

qualitative questions was ranged between 70% and

84%.Aftertheinitial roundofreliability coding,the

PIandsecondraterdiscusseddiscrepantitemsaswell

aschangestothecodingcategories.Thesediscussions

resultedinchangestotheemergentcategories,andthe

second round of coding yielded increased reliability

ranging from 90% to 100% for each of the three

questions.

Results

Demographics:WhoUsesVisualPhonics

Professional roles. Asummaryoftheprofessionalrole

for each participant is show in Table 1. Participants

could choose one or more options to describe their

professional roles. Nearly half of the participants

self-identiﬁed as teachers of the deaf (n 5 113,

57%)and 44 (22%) chose special education teacher.

Additional roles included regular education teacher

(n 5 33, 16%), reading specialist (n 5 12, 6%),

speech-language pathologist (n 5 24, 12%), and

interpreter(n 56,3%).Justover10%ofparticipants

(n 5 22) chose ‘‘other’’ and described themselves as

‘‘parent,’’‘‘homehospitalteacher,’’‘‘programspecialist,’’

or‘‘volunteer.’’Totalsexceed100%becauseparticipants

hadtheoptionofidentifyingmorethanonerole.

Professional experience. Participants described the

length of their professional experience acrossseveral

categoriesrelatedtoeducation,special education,and

use of Visual Phonics, speciﬁcally. Participants

indi-catedoneoffour categoriesofexperience:1–2 years,

3–5 years, 6–10 years, and more than 10 years. A

summary of the experience of study participants is

shownin Figure 1. The most striking contrast is in

Table 1 ProfessionalroleofVisualPhonicsSurvey participants

Professionalrole Numberofparticipants(%)* Specialeducationteacher 44(22)

Deafeducator 113(57)

Regulareducationteacher

Preschool 7(3)

Elementary 25(13)

Secondary 1(.5)

Readingspecialist 12(6) Speechlanguagepathologist 24(12)

Interpreter 6(3)

Other 24(12)

*Thetotalsumstomorethan100%becauseparticipantscouldselect morethanonerole.

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Figure 1 Participant’slengthofprofessionalexperience.

the relative level of experience in education compared

withhowlongparticipantshadbeenusingVisual

Pho-nics. Half of the participants (n 5 105) indicated that

theyhadmorethan10yearsofexperiencein theﬁeld.

Ontheotherhand,asimilarproportion(n 5102)had

only 1–2 years of experience with Visual Phonics. The

participantpoolwasnotnew to educationbut hadnot

necessarilyworkedwithstudentswhoareDHH or

stu-dents with disabilities for their entire teaching career.

Morerelevanttothisdiscussion,themajorityof

partic-ipantswererelativelynewto Visual Phonics.Inthe

dis-cussionsection,weexaminethisfurtherinrelationtothe

natureoftheseparticipants’responsestothequestions.

Setting. Participants represented 21 states, with

higher concentrations of individuals from Colorado

(n 5 18, 9%) North Carolina (n 5 23, 12%), and

Virginia(n 524,12%).Participantsworkedina

vari-ety of educational settings across the continuum of

placementoptions.Figure2summarizes thetypesof

educational settings in which the study participants

used Visual Phonics. Those individuals who noted

multiplesettingsareinthe‘‘other’’category.The

ma-jorityofparticipants(n 571,35%)workedwith

stu-dentswith specialneeds(includingDHH)thatspent

part of the day in a ‘‘pull-out’’ setting. The second

most prevalent settingwas an inclusion (i.e., regular

educationonly)setting(n 5 30,15%).

Source of visual phonics training. Although ICLI

attempts to regulate how individuals are trained in

Figure 2 TypesofsettingswhererespondentsusedVisual Phonics.

Visual Phonics, we asked participants to identify the

rangeof contexts wheretheyreceived their training.

Thisquestionwasinachecklist format,with options

includingfrom‘‘PreserviceTeaching’’to‘‘Professional

Development’’ to ‘‘No Formal Training.’’ As part of

the dataanalysis process, we created a new variable,

‘‘Trainer’’from theresponses tothe‘‘Other’’option.

Notsurprisingly,themostprevalentsourceforVisual

Phonics training, by far, was a professional

develop-ment opportunity (n 5 170, 85%). The only other

widespread source was one’s colleagues (n 5 44,

22%), also an in-service resource. Only 5% of the

participants (n 5 10) indicated they were using it

butwerenotformallytrained.

Student characteristics. Participants described with whom they had used Visual Phonics, both during

thecurrent(2008–09)academicyearandinprevious

academic years. Data from the current academic

year and previous academic years were reasonably

similar.TeachersusedVisual Phonics primarilywith

students who were DHH and students that had

other disabilities (not including DHH). With less

frequency, teachers reported using Visual Phonics

withstudentswhowereEnglishLanguageLearners.

ThemajorityofteachersreportedusingVisual

Pho-nics with elementary-age students, which makes

sense because this is typically when students are

learningtoread.Amuchsmallernumberofteachers

useditwithmiddleschoolandhighschoolstudents.

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Generally speaking this validates what is known

aboutthetargetpopulationfromwhom Visual

Pho-nics is most widely used. Additionally, it

demon-strates that its use is not exclusive to the DHH

population.

HowIsVisualPhonicsUsed?

Breadth of use. Curioustounderstandthebreadthof

use within a school environment, we asked

partici-pantswhoelseattheirschoolsiteusesVisual Phonics.

Slightlyoverhalf oftheparticipantsindicatedseveral

colleagues are also using Visual Phonics (n 5 108,

54%). A small percentage(n 5 36, 18%)worked in

asettingwhereVisual Phonics wasusedprogram-wide,

and only n 5 34 (17%) were alone in their Visual

Phonics use. The remainingparticipantschose‘‘other’’

or did not respond to this item (n 5 21, 11%).The

responsesdescribetheexperiencesofeachteacher

rela-tiveto his/her peers;therefore, teachersfromonesite

maybe reportinginformation relatedto the samesite.

Approximatelyhalfof theparticipantsmadetheir own

decision to use Visual Phonics with their students,

whereasroughly30%madethedecisionwithcolleagues

and20%indicateditwasanadministrativedecision.

Written symbols. Consistent with anecdotal reports

from trainers, less than half of the participants

reportedtheyusethewrittensymbolsthataccompany

Visual Phonics (n 579,40%).Participantsweregiven

theopportunity tocomment on thisquestion,which

yielded varied and opposing responses. Many use

them with upper-grade primary students after

stu-dents hadmastered the alphabet andsimple spelling

patterns. Others commented that the symbols were

useful for younger students as they were learning

sound/letterrelationships.Stillotherteachersreported

using the written symbols or markings that

accom-paniedotherprograms(e.g.,WilsonLanguage)instead

oftheVisual Phonics writtensymbols,eventhoughthey used the Visual Phonics hand cues. Several teachers

commented that the written symbols were confusing

tochildrenwhowerealsolearningthealphabet.

Reading curriculum and methods. Participants

pro-videdinformationaboutthekindsofreadingcurricula

andmethodstheyusedwiththeirstudents,bothwith

andwithout Visual Phonics.Forthequantitative

por-tion of this question, choices included Reading

Re-covery, Success for All, Open Court, Houghton

Mifﬂin for Reading, Systematic Instruction in

Pho-nemeAwareness,Phonics,andSightWords(SIPPS),

andaCombinationofResources(suchasExplodethe

CodeandReadingRockets).Foreachitem,participants

indicated whether they (a) used the curriculum/

method,(b) usedthe curriculum/methodwith Visual

Phonics, or (c) did not use the curriculum/method.

Figure3 provides a summary of the curricula by the

numberofparticipantswho respondedtothisportion

ofthequestion.Themostcommonlyreportedmethod

usedwas actuallythe Combination of Resources

cate-gory(29%usedthemaloneand35%usedwithVisual

Phonics).Thenexthighestcurriculumreportedoverall

wastheHoughtonMifﬂinforReadingseries,with31%

usingitaloneand13%usingwithVisual Phonics. Use

ofSIPPSwas evenly split betweenthosewho used it

without Visual Phonics (19%) and those who used it

with Visual Phonics (18%). It is surprising thatmore

popularandheavilybasedphonicsinstructional

meth-odssuchasthatReadingRecovery,SuccessforAll,and

Open Courtwere used very littlewith Visual Phonics

(3%,2%,and4%,respectively).

Over half of the participants wrote in responses

thateitherelaboratedupontheirchoicesoradded

in-formationtothequestion.Thoseresponseswere

cat-egorized according to whether the curriculum

identiﬁedwas ageneral educationcurriculum,

reme-dialcurriculum,orwhetheritwasareadingresource.

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Althoughseveralcurriculaorresourceswereidentiﬁed

by more than one person, none exceeded even the

lowestchoicesinthequantitativesectionabove.Some

ofthemorefrequentlycitedgeneraleducation

curric-ulaincludedSRAReadingMastery,Harcourt(partof

Houghton-Mifﬂin), MacMillian-McGraw Hill

Read-ing, and Scott-Foresman. More speciﬁc information

relatedtotheparticularseriesofpublishersor

curric-ula was not obtained. Frequently identiﬁedremedial

curricula included Reading Milestones, Fundations

(Wilson Language Basics), and Language!. Avariety

of reading resources and materials were identiﬁed,

with noone source identiﬁedmore than others.

Re-gardless of thecurriculum or method used,teachers

self-report that they are using a variety of standard

curricula and methods to teach reading to their

DHHstudents.Thisﬁndingmaybepredictablegiven

the requirements of No Child Left Behind Act

(NCLB2001).NCLBmandatesthatreadingmaterials

mustincludetheﬁveessentialcomponentsofreading

instruction:phonemicawareness,phonics,vocabulary,

ﬂuency, and comprehension. Reports from these

teachers are substantially different than what was

reported over 10 years ago in a national survey of

reading instruction for DHH students that found

whole-languageandReadingMilestonestobein

pre-dominate use (LaSasso & Mobley, 1997). Prior to

NCLB, when Reading Milestones and a

whole-language approach were inuse, phonemic awareness

andphonicswerenotrequired tobetaught.

Reading skills and visual phonics. Participants were

asked toidentifywhether theyuse Visual Phonics for

speciﬁc reading-related activities or skills including

teaching phonemic awareness, phonics, spelling, and

vocabulary.Althoughnotnecessarilyareading-related

skill, participants were also asked if they use Visual

Phonics for articulation practiceand speech

develop-ment. Figure 4 shows the relative usage for speciﬁc

skills. For DHH students, teachers indicated using

Visual Phonics foralltheaboveactivitieswiththe

ma-jorityofrespondentsindicatingtheyuseitforphonics

(n 5 134, 67%)and then spelling (n 5 136, 64%),

phonemic awareness (n 5 123, 61.5%), vocabulary

(n 5 100, 50%), and articulation (n 5 111, 55%).

Thetrendsweresimilarinuseforstudentswithother

Figure 4 SpeciﬁcskillstaughtusingVisual Phonics.

disabilitiesandEnglishLanguage Learners,although

therewerefewer total numberofresponses forthose

students.

WhyUseVisualPhonics?

Evidence of effectiveness. We asked participants to

indicate how they knew if Visual Phonics was

effectivewiththeirdiversestudents.Optionsincluded

improvement on reading-related tasks (reading

comprehension, word recognition, decoding,

engage-ment in reading) and assessment measures

(curriculum-basedmeasures andstandardized

assess-ments). Participants were also given the option to

write-inresponses.

Asummaryofparticipant responsestothis

ques-tionis inFigure5.Sourcesofevidencefor

effective-nessappeartovaryacrossitems.Themostcommonly

citedsourceofevidenceisanimprovementinstudent

decodingcapabilities, particularly for DHH students

(n 5126,63%)andstudentswith disabilities(SWD)

(n 5 74, 37%).Participantsalso identiﬁed

improve-ment in word recognition tasks for DHH students

(n 5 108,54%)andforSWD (n 561,30.5%).

Per-hapssurprisingisthesimilarityinprevalenceof

read-ing comprehension and student engagement as

asourceofevidence,withsimilar distributionsacross

DHH,SWD,Englishlanguagelearners,andstudents

withoutdisabilities.Participantsindicatedassessments

less frequently asa source ofevidence for the

effec-tivenessofVisual Phonics;thisresult may notbenot

surprising given that many standardized assessments

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Figure 5 Evidenceofeffectiveness.

are not developed for administration with DHH

learners. Anotherﬁnding waslessthana thirdofthe

participants noted performance on curriculum-based

measuresasasourceofevidenceforanytypeofstudent

withwhomtheyworked.Thisde-emphasison

curric-ulum-based measures is perhapstobeexpected inan

era with signiﬁcant emphasis on standardized

assess-ment in measuring student proﬁciency in academic

subjects.Whenviewedfromanaccountability

perspec-tive, curriculum-based measures play a small role in

evaluationofeitherstudentperformanceortheefﬁcacy

ofcurriculum models(Cawthon,2007).

Twenty-sevenparticipantswrote-inresponsesthat

were examinedfor recurring patternsor information

that differed from the responses identiﬁed above.

Eight participants speciﬁcally indicated they do not

feeltheyhavebeenusingVisual Phonics longenough

tosee improvement.This makes sense giventhe

de-mographic data reporting approximately half of the

participantshadonlyhad1–2yearsofexperiencewith

it. Two participants, both DHH teachers, indicated

speciﬁcallythattheyfeelVisual Phonics doesnot

ben-eﬁtthestudentswith whomtheywork.Seven

partic-ipants wrote-in that they notice their students’

articulation (speech production) has improved with

theuseofVisual Phonics.Consistentwiththe

quanti-tativeﬁndingsforthisquestion,improvementinsome

aspectofdecodingrecurredinthewrite-inresponses.

For example, one speech-language pathologist who

mentrelatedtotheuseofcurriculum-basedmeasures,

‘‘We use curriculum based measures for ﬂuency,

e.g., timed repeated readings. These have improved

indirectly from visual phonics as a result of

improved decoding skills.’’ There were also several

recurrent comments related to improved spelling

skills.

Perceptions of visual phonics. Also toaddressthewhy

question, both quantitative andqualitative questions

wereused to understand participants’perceptions of

using Visual Phonics. A set of quantitative questions

asked participants torate their perceptions ofVisual

Phonics asaninstructionalapproachwithinthree

cat-egories: aspects ofimplementation (e.g., easy touse,

helpswithclassroommanagement),outcomesfor

stu-dents(e.g., improves phonemicawarenessor student

achievementinother subjectareas),andapplicability

to student grade level (e.g., elementary vs. middle

grades).Participantsrateditemsonscaleof1to7that

allowed them varying degreesof agreement with the

itemsineach category(1 5 agreestrongly,6 5

dis-agree strongly, and 7 5 not applicable or unsure).

Figure6showstheratingsforaspectsof

implementa-tionintermsofpercentagesofagreement.Thereader

is cautioned when reviewing this ﬁgure as the total

number ofparticipants for each perception varies. A

combined83%oftheparticipantsagreed stronglyor

somewhat that Visual Phonics was easy to use as an

instructionalapproach,87%agreedstronglyor

some-what that it engaged students, and 84% agreed

stronglyor somewhatthat Visual Phonics waseasyto

integrate into a structured curriculum. Only 68%

agreedstrongly or somewhatthat itwaseffectivefor

all students andonly 46% agreed strongly or

some-what that it helpedwith classroom behavior. We

in-cluded ‘‘classroom behavior’’ as a potential response

categorybecauseanecdotallyVisual Phonics isreported

to be highly engaging. When students are engaged,

maladaptive classroom behaviors tend to be

mini-mized.We lookedspeciﬁcallyathowyears of

experi-ence (1–2 years or 31 years) with Visual Phonics

impacted perceptions and found onlyone signiﬁcant

difference (M 5 1.93, M 5 1.57, respectively) in

aspects of implementation related to ease of use

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Figure 6 Participants’perceptionsofimplementation.

(1–2 years) found Visual Phonics harder to use than

moreexperiencedusers.

Figure7showsparticipants’perceptionsrelatedto

outcomes for students. Not surprisingly, 95% of

participants agreed strongly or somewhat thatVisual

Phonics improves phonemicawareness; however,here

againasigniﬁcantdifferencewasfoundbetween

nov-ice and more experienced users. The reader is

cau-tioned when reviewing this ﬁgure as the total

number ofparticipantsvaries acrosstheitems. More

experiencedusersagreedmorestronglythattheuseof

Visual Phonics helps improve phonemic awareness.

Ninety-three percent of the participants agreed

stronglyorsomewhatthatitincreasesdecodingskills.

Perhaps not immediately understood might be the

ﬁnding that71%agreedstronglyor somewhatthatit

iseffectiveinbuildingvocabulary.Vocabularylearning

andretentionseemstobea‘‘by-product’’oflearning

words phonemicallythrough Visual Phonics.Teachers

have reported this informally; however, there is no

empirical evidence that examines this speciﬁc aspect

of reading and word learning using Visual Phonics.

From a wider perspective, the relationship between

vocabulary knowledge andreading comprehension is

particularly pertinent here. Research with both

hearingchildren andDHHstudents clearlyindicates

thatabroadanddeepknowledgeofwords is

inextri-cably linked to reading comprehension (seeNational

Reading Panel, 2000; as well as Garrison, Long, & Dowaliby, 1997; Kelly, 1996). That noted, 64% of

these participants agreed strongly or somewhat that

students improve in their reading comprehension

skillswhenVisual Phonics isused.Curiously,alarger

percentageofteacherswith 3 or more yearsof

expe-rience agreed more strongly with this statement.

Seventy-two percent of the participants agreed

stronglyorsomewhatthatitincreasesstudent

achieve-mentinothersubjectareas.

Asexpected,amuchgreaterpercentageof

partic-ipants(94%)agreedstronglyorsomewhatthatVisual

Phonics wasmostappropriateforelementary age

stu-dents and 74% agreed strongly or somewhat it was

appropriatefor studentsinmiddleschool grades.On

the whole, participants were positive about the

per-ceived beneﬁts of Visual Phonics for their teaching

practiceandtheirstudents,withverysmalldifferences

inthemeanratingsacrosscriteria.

Finally, we asked three open-ended questions

requesting participants to offer what they like most,

whattheyﬁndmostchallenging,andwhattheywould

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Figure 7 Perceivedoutcomesforstudents.

change about Visual Phonics. What do you like most

about Visual Phonics? Eight-twopercent (n 5163)of

the participants wrote in responses to this question.

Throughout the analysis it was clear that many

responses containedelements that ﬁt into more than

one category. Seven well-deﬁned categories emerged

fromresponses.Overwhelmingly,thelargestcategory

(50%, n 5 82) pertained to appreciating the purpose

andfunctionalityofVisual Phonics.Forexample,

. ithelpsmy studentslearn decodingskillsand

improve with word recognition. It is a tool that

can be incorporated with an existing literacy

curriculum.

Ilovethatmystudentsareabletoincreasespelling

accuracy, decode more ﬂuently, manipulate

pho-nemes, and understand the concept of

sound-to-printratio.

Thevisual nature ofVisual Phonics wasanelement

of 20% (n 5 33) of the comments. Making sounds

visible, allowing DHH children to see what hearing

childrenheardeﬁnedthegeneralsentimentwithinthis

category.Lessfrequentlyemergingcategoriesforwhy

teachersuseVisual Phonics includedit’s easy (11.5%),

it’s tactile (9%), it’s engaging (8%), it’s fexible (6%), andit’s multi-modal (5%).Commentsbaseduponthe

perceptualreasonsforusingVisual Phonics accounted

for a combined 34% of the comments (it’s visual,

tactile, and multimodal). The remaining categories

(easy, engaging, and ﬂexible) were also addressed as

a distinct question within the survey (seeFigure 5),

which may explain why these particular themes

emergedlessfrequently asgeneralcomments.

Wealsoaskedparticipants:What do you fnd

chal-lenging about Visual Phonics? Seventy-four percent

(n 5 149) of the participants responded to this

question. Although some responses did ﬁt multiple

categories, most responses were distinct in their

meaning.Ninecategoriesinitiallyemergedfromthese

responses; however, four of the categories had less

than 5% of comments. By far the most frequently

occurring comments (33%) related to the use or

implementationofVisual Phonics.Forexample,

What to do when a student may rely on Visual

Phonics toomuchwiththeirdecoding...

encour-agingthem toexpandpasttheirdecodingand

be-comemore automatic.Fluencybecomes anissue.

Using visual phonics becomes challenging when

you, the teacher, are unsure of what the sound

shouldbeorwhattheblendis.

Sometimes thepace ofa mainstreamclassroomis

challengingtodemonstrate thesounds asquickly

astheyarepresented.Iﬁndthatslowingdownand

not trying to present so much material is better

thandoingitbadly—qualityisbetterthanquantity.

Learning and remembering the hand cues and/or

writtensymbolsaccountedfor26%ofthecomments.

The time involved in integrating Visual Phonics into

instructionwasthethirdmostfrequentcomment,

ac-countingfor10%oftheresponses.Forexample,

Having enough time to teach& practice using it

with students asI’dlike to—too manythingswe

havetocraminto ourshortsessions!

Theamountofmaterialthatneedstobetaughtat

2ndgrademakesitdifﬁculttoﬁtthisin.Itisvital

for students whohave not had thistraining, and

whoarrive at our programwith a deﬁcit in

pho-nemicawareness.Forthemitisagood,fun catch

uptoolthatcanbridgegaps intheirlearning and

helpwithspelling,decodingandlisteningskills.’’

Isolation wasanotherrecurrenttheme(6%),likely

inoccurrencewiththe17%ofparticipantsthatarethe

onlyonesusingitattheirsite.Confusion withorlack

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ofuse ofthewrittensymbols wasadistinct category

(6%)thatdifferedsigniﬁcantlyfromcommentsrelated

to‘‘remembering’’thesymbols.Oneparticipant

com-mented,‘‘Studentslearningthewrittencode.Someof

the symbols are very similar and the children get

confused.’’

Theother categoriesthat accountedfor less than

5% of the comments individuallywere thoughts

re-lated to how instruction with Visual Phonics can be

linked to vocabulary(3%, i.e.,‘‘A childmay beable

toblendthesyllablestogethertocorrectly pronounce

aword, buttheword stilllacks meaning.’’);

prepara-tionofmaterials(3%);consistencyinuse(2%,i.e.,‘‘I

ﬁndthatitischallengingtomakesurethatallofthe

teachers are giving the same directions on the hand

cues.’’), andgeneralconfusion notspeciﬁcally related

tothecuesor symbols(2%).

Thelastquestionrelatedtodesiredchangeabout

thetool:What would you change about Visual Phonics?

Sixty-sixpercent(n 5133)ofthesurveyparticipants

wrote in responses to this question. Six categories

were identiﬁed from these comments. The largest

categoryofwrittenresponses(28%)speciﬁed

partici-pantswouldnotchangeanythingaboutVisual Phonics.

Thenextmostfrequentlyoccurringresponses (24%)

related to changes with the written symbols and/or

hand cues.Forexample,

Convert thesymbols tostandard phonemic

sym-bolssothatcarryovertodictionaryuseand

main-streamingsituationsiseasier.

Ihavealreadyaddedmy ownsymbols and

hand-shapes for r-controlled vowels such as /or/ and

/ar/. Also,I wouldalso addanother component

intheprogram that dealsexplicitly withspelling

patternse.g.long/a/canbespelledlike/ai/,/ay/,

/a___e/,etc.

Thesecommentsmakesensegiventhatmany

par-ticipantsalsocommentedthatsomeaspectofthecues

or symbolschallengedthem.

Changesoradditions ofcurriculumandmaterials

to accompany Visual Phonics accounted for 16% of

thesecomments. Forexample,

Ithinkthetrainingshouldfocusmoreonvarying

waystousetheprogram.Iuseitmostlyfor

spell-ing purposes taking a ‘‘back door’’ approach to

transferring spelling into reading and decoding

skills.

Haveavideoorsomethingtoshowmyinterpreters

whodon’t know theprogram—maybea modiﬁed

shorttrainingforinterpreterstojustteach

hand-shapes andnot really allthe ‘teacher’partof the

training.

I agree ithelps with improvingphonemic

aware-ness anddecodingskills,but stillneedstobe

in-corporatedwithotherresources.Ipersonallythink

morematerialsneedtobeprovidedinusingvisual

phonicsandmoretraining.

Nine percent of the comments written-in stated

theparticipants ‘‘didn’t know’’ what they would like

tochange.Thisisnotsurprisingbecausealittlemore

than half of the participants had been using Visual

Phonics for less than 2 years. Other less frequently

occurringcategoriesincludedchangesrelatedto

want-ingmoreworkshopsforextendingandbuildingupon

itsuse (7%, i.e.,‘‘I wouldliketotake thenextclass

developing lesson plans to use in the classroom to

integrate in my curriculum.’’) and wanting more

peopletouse it attheirsite for greater collaboration

(4%).

Discussion

Signiﬁcance

Understanding and describing teachers’ reading

in-structional practicesanddocumenting perceived

efﬁ-cacyisanecessarypartofaddressingthe

research-to-practicegapthatexistsineducation. Schirmer(2001)

callsonresearcherstolookatwhatteachersaredoing

intheirclassroomstogaininsightintostrategies

wor-thyofresearch,inadditiontowonderingwhyteachers

do not implement evidence-based practices. In this

study, teachers self-reported their practices and

reﬂectedupon theefﬁcacyofthose practices,

speciﬁ-cally related to reading instruction and the use of

Visual Phonics. Their responses and reﬂections

provideinsightintomotivationstouseVisual Phonics,

aswellasbarrierstoits consistentuse.Although the

empirical base examining Visual Phonics is growing,

littleis knownabout how andwhy teacherspersist in

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usingitwithDHHandotherlearners.Thisinquiryis

aﬁrststeptoward addressingthesequestions.

Teachers’ instructional strategies for teaching

reading have also largely omitted curricula that are

heavily phonics based. Teachers reported here that

theyareusingavarietyofreading curricula,in

addi-tiontovarious resources andmaterialstoteach

com-plex reading skills. Although the focus of thispaper

wason DHH students, valuable information gleaned

includes teacherreports of usingVisual Phonics with

diverse students (students with disabilities, English

Language Learners, and those who are struggling

readersbutwerenotidentiﬁedwith adisability).

In addition, there ismountingevidence that

sug-gests DHH learners can beneﬁt from some kind of

understanding and interaction with the alphabetic

principleiftheyaretolearnhow to‘‘crackthecode’’

andbecomesuccessfulreaders.Visual Phonics isatool

thatutilizes thestrengths ofDHHstudentsasvisual

learners and provides this unique information in

a completely accessible way. Using Visual Phonics,

teachersandDHHstudentsarenotrequiredtoproduce

spokenlanguagetodemonstratephonemicawarenessor

thealphabeticprinciple.Outcomesfromthisstudy

sug-gestthatalthoughthepotentialforusingVisual Phonics

isstrong,teachersstrugglewithhowtobestimplement

itandincorporateitintotheirreadinginstruction.

Asatool,Visual Phonics isusedtosupportexisting

curriculaandresources.Asidefromthehandcuesand

graphemes(thesystemitself),therearenoguidelines

or ‘‘best practices’’ that are associated with its use.

Muchof theintegration anduse ofVisual Phonics is

left to be determined by the creative teacher who

reﬂects thoughtfully on how best to infuse it into

herinstruction.Asshowninthisstudy,teachers

strug-glewith thisadaptive process.Theywouldlikemore

workshopsandguidanceabouthowtouseVisual

Pho-nics most effectively. More fundamentally, they

struggle with completely learning the system and

using it accuratelyafter exposurethrough a training

seminar. Teachers indicated that ‘‘refresher’’ videos,

more workshops on implementation, and additional

resourceswouldbehelpful.

Despite the fact that teachers have used Visual

Phonics for over 20 years, there are limited

publica-tions describing how and why teachers gravitate

to-ward its use. Within Deaf Education, anecdotal

evidence and word-of-mouth have perpetuated its

use and propagated increased interest. From this

study, it seems clear that further investigation is

es-sential to better understand how teachers are using

Visual Phonics in their day-to-day instructional

rou-tinesby validatingtheirself-reported practices.

Lon-gitudinal information will also provide valuable

insights if teachers continue to use Visual Phonics

andgainexperienceinimplementationandsee

stron-geroutcomes fortheirstudents.

Limitations

Thereare a number oflimitations to thisstudy that

impactthegeneralizablityandreliabilityofitsﬁndings.

Thesample of participantswasskewed toward those

whohadusedVisual Phonics foronlyafewyears.Itis

possible that more advanced users of Visual Phonics

wouldhavedifferentperspectives(thoughadhoc

anal-ysesofthisrelationshipprovednottoshowsigniﬁcant

differencesinteacherresponses,withtheexceptionof

easeofusewherenoviceusersperceiveditasharderto

use). Second, there were some items that had high

levelsofmissingdata,callingintoquestionthematch

betweentheintentofthesurveyandtheexperiences

ofVisual Phonics users.Themostsigniﬁcantlimitation

relatedtoreliabilityisthatthesurveywasaself-report

measure of teacher experiences with Visual Phonics.

Althoughthesurvey waspiloted andrevisedinlight

ofparticipant feedback,the design did not allow for

afollow-uponhowteachersinterpretedtheitemsorif

they would have answered them differently if the

itemshadbeenphrasedinanother way.Itis possible

thatwordingregarding‘‘effectiveness’’ofVisual

Pho-nics,for example, tookon differentmeaning

depend-ingonthe teacher’scontext. Items alsovaried inthe

extenttowhichtheyarepotentiallyveriﬁable.For

ex-ample, items related to teacher perspectives are not

directly observable, whereas items that focused on

teacherpracticescouldbematched againstclassroom

implementationofVisual Phonics.

Anotherlimitationincludesmorespeciﬁc

informa-tiondescribingthestudentpopulation.Characteristics

ofthestudentssuch ashearinglevels, family

charac-teristics,andprimarylanguageusewerenotgathered.

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Therewas an additionallack of speciﬁcityrelated to

the categorization of students with disabilities.

Al-though we wanted to know whether teachers were

using Visual Phonics with a variety of students, we

did not requestinformation about the nature of the

students’themselvesoranyuniquedisabilities.

Continuedresearchinthisareais requiredto

val-idate and expand upon the current ﬁndings.

Subse-quent surveys with increased response rates and

focused systematic classroom observation data that

investigates teachers’ instructional methodswill

pro-videvaliditydata.Expandedinvestigationintostudent

characteristics couldalsoyielda more deﬁnedproﬁle

of thekinds of students that may beneﬁt most from

instructionusingVisual Phonics.

Conficts of Interest

The ﬁrst author is a See-the-Sound/Visual Phonics

trainer licensed by ICLI, the proprietors of Visual

Phonics. No monetary compensation from ICLI is

receivedinherroleasatrainer,norwasanymonetary

compensationreceivedasapartofthisstudy.

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