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High expectations are expected at all levels, but ideally are in place inpreschool. It is our job as early intervention providers to model for parentswhat high expectations look like and how to translate those expectations intofamily experiences. In our preschool program at Missouri State University,where we serve children with all communication modalities and all styles ofpersonal assistive listening devices, we emphasize the importance of highexpectations and model them. Here is a look at our program.

It began in 1989 when a Missouri State University professor, Dr. HaroldMeyers, was awarded a U.S. Department of Education grant through the Officeof Special Education to prepare future educators of students who are deaf orhard of hearing. It was through this grant that our preschool program, housedin the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders Speech Languageand Hearing Clinic, was formed. Our preschool has supported the preparationof teachers while providing direct services to children, ages 3 to 6 years old,who are deaf or hard of hearing. We welcome children into the programregardless of communication modality and the presence of additionaldisabilities. We provide a family-centered intervention.

Infusing High Expectations into the ClassroomIn our program, we immerse deaf and hard of hearing students in expectations that they willbecome independent and literate from the moment they enter our classroom. We fill ourstudents’ environment with language, as language is the basis for all learning, whilesimultaneously involving them in emergent literacy activities. The development of language,

Ye (Angel) Wang,PhD, is an associateprofessor andcoordinator of theEducation of the Deafand Hard of HearingGraduate Program inthe Department ofCommunicationSciences and Disordersat Missouri StateUniversity.

By Ye Wang, Karen S. Engler, and Tara L. Oetting

EXPECTATIONS LEAD TO PERFORMANCE:

TheTransformativePower of

High Expectationsin Preschool

Photos courtesy of Ye Wang, Karen S. Engler, and Tara L. Oetting

Karen S. Engler,MA, is a clinicalassociate professor inthe Department ofCommunicationSciences and Disordersat Missouri StateUniversity.

2014 ODYSSEY 37

Left: A father and

daughter involved in

the Deaf Role Model

Program learn how to

sign I love you.

Far left: A mother

learns the sign family

from a deaf role model.

Tara L. Oetting,MS, is a clinical associateprofessor and preschoolteacher in the Speechand Hearing Clinic ofthe Department ofCommunication Sciencesand Disorders atMissouri StateUniversity.

The authors welcomequestions and commentsabout this article atYeWang@missouristate.edu, KarenEngler@missouristate.edu, andTaraOetting@missouristate.edu.

literacy, social, academic, speech, and auditoryskills is interfaced with the development of self-advocacy and independence.

Our language-intensive classroom uses arepetitive approach to vocabulary building. Itprovides students with multiple means throughwhich they can experience language and build abase for literacy. As with most preschool children,children who are deaf or hard of hearing appear tobenefit greatly from repetitive tasks, especiallythose that are more abstract in nature. The varietyof learning styles used in the classroom giveschildren the opportunity to experience languageand build literacy skills. The students constantlyreceive multiple exposures to signed, spoken, andwritten language throughout the school day. Forexample, all items in the classroom have a label,and the label includes a picture of the sign withthe printed word beneath it. This maximizes eachstudent’s opportunity to connect the printed wordwith the item itself and with its signed partner.

We use age-appropriate curricula and readingmaterials with adaptions for preschool. Forexample, as our curricular base for group reading,we use Section 1 of Reading Mastery I(SRA/McGraw-Hill, 2008), a scientifically basedreading program that has demonstrated positiveoutcomes with a wide range of students who areat risk for developing reading problems. Lessons

1-30 of Early Reading Tutor (SRA/McGraw-Hill,2007) provide additional instruction forindividuals, including 30 one-on-one, 10-minutesupplementary lessons. This also providesadditional information and allows the teacher toattend to students’ individual needs. Due to thediversity in degrees of hearing loss—many timesranging from mild/moderate to profound—and inlanguage environments in their homes, ourstudents vary significantly in their exposure andaccess to languages (spoken, signed, and written).Individual instruction, supplementing groupinstruction, is necessary to meet the needs ofthese students.

Also, in order to accommodate the uniqueneeds of students who are deaf or hard of hearing,we use multiple instructional strategies andtechnologies to adapt the mainstream curricula.For example, we use Visual Phonics, a system of46 unique hand cues and symbols that representthe sounds of English, to supplement the phonicsinstruction during both group and individualinstructions. Second, we use a digitalized PhotoLibrary to demonstrate the range of meanings foreach word presented in the word-readingactivities in the lessons of Reading Mastery I. Theextra pictorial representation of vocabulary fromthe Photo Library provides enhancedopportunities for students who are deaf or hard of

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hearing to develop their vocabulary,particularly words with multiplemeanings (e.g., the word “bat” has twopictures—one with the animal, one withthe baseball equipment). Third, lessonsused from Reading Mastery I werescanned into a file on a computer andshown on a SMART Board, whichenlarges the picture and print. TheSMART Board technology allowsteachers to have free hands for signingand for signaling students. SMARTBoards overcome a limitation oftraditional instruction by enablingstudents to have easy access to both theteacher’s signing and their readingmaterials; students do not have to lookdown at the print in their books. Withthe touch screen function, SMARTBoards transform the classroom into aninteractive, engaging learningenvironment. Coupled with wirelessmicrophones and built-in speakers,SMART Boards also increase students’access to spoken language.

Modeling and TranslatingBringing High Expectations Home We model high expectations for parentsof preschool children and help themtranslate those expectations into theirfamily experiences through weekly take-home DVD reading kits. The primarypurpose of the reading kits is to improvethe families’ sign language vocabulary.

Although exposed to both signing andspeech at school, a majority of thepreschoolers are not exposed to signingat home because their parents have littleor no signing skills. Free sign languageworkshops have been offered for theparents, but many parents have not beenable to attend. The reading kits arebeneficial in improving communication,therefore lessening stress, and perhapslead to increased language skills for thepreschool children.

Each reading kit consists of:

• One storybook appropriate forpreschoolers based on the Scholasticwebsite (www.scholastic.com)

• One DVD with two versions of thestorybook—one in American SignLanguage (ASL), the language thatdeaf and hard of hearing individualsuse within the Deaf community, andone in Conceptually Accurate SignEnglish (CASE), the system ofsigning conceptually correctAmerican signs in English wordorder—both of which are signed byeither the classroom teacher or agraduate clinician

• Two vocabulary packets ofapproximately 20 vocabulary wordsfor each storybook (one in ASL andone in CASE)

• A one-page handout that lists and

briefly explains the materialsincluded in the reading kit as well asinstructions on how to use the kit inthe most beneficial way

• A two-page handout that includes Tipsfor Enhancing Early Literacy in the Homeand Tips for Parents of Preschoolers

Parents typically check out one readingkit each week. A pilot investigationfound that these teacher-made, DVD-based, take-home reading kits wereeffective not only in improving signvocabulary and communication of thetwo families who participated but alsoin helping deaf and hard of hearingpreschoolers express themselves throughsigned language.

Measuring and MonitoringEnsuring Expectations Stay HighWe measure and monitor the impact ofestablishing high expectations throughvarious formal and informal assessments.For example, the formal assessments,administrated at the beginning and theend of the academic year, are:

• Test of Preschool Early Literacy(TOPEL)—The TOPEL is used totest for reading readiness in preschoolstudents and to determine areas ofstruggle that need extra assistance.There are two tested areas: PrintKnowledge, in which studentsdiscriminate between letters andother symbols and then move on toidentifying letters, and DefinitionalVocabulary, in which studentsidentify by name the picture providedand answer a question about whatthat item does.

•Word Associations for SyllablePerception (WASP)—The WASP isan assessment on auditory skilldevelopment. It includes 225 child-friendly picture cards representingthe English phonemes. It starts withsingle phonemes and simple syllabussounds (e.g., /m/, /baa/, and /s/). Thenit systematically introduces wordswith increasingly complexcombinations, such as consonant-

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2014 ODYSSEY

vowel-consonant words.

• Goldman-Fristoe Test ofArticulation 2 (GFTA-2)—TheGFTA-2 provides information about astudent’s articulation ability bysampling both spontaneous andimitative sound production. Thestudent responds to picture plates andverbal cues from the examiner withsingle-word answers that demonstratecommon speech sounds. Additionalsections provide further measures ofspeech production. The GFTA-2measures articulation of consonantsounds, determines types ofmisarticulation, and comparesindividual performance to national,gender-differentiated norms.

• Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test 4(PPVT-4)—The PPVT-4, with 228stimulus words, quickly evaluatesreceptive vocabulary and requires noreading or writing skills.

•Woodcock-Johnson Tests ofAchievement-III (WJ-III)—Four ofthe WJ-III subtests—Letter-WordIdentification, Spelling, WordAttack, and PassageComprehension—are administered.Matching, identifying, copying, andreading symbols, including someletters and words, areincluded. A phoneticalreading of nonsensewords is also a partof the assessment.

In addition, we usemany formal andinformal assessmentsthroughout the year,monitoring progressmonthly. These include:

• Initial Sounds Fluency, asubtest from Dynamic Indicators ofBasic Early Literacy Skills, with letternames and letter sounds assessment;

• Length of Utterance, a calculationbased on collected language samples;

• Cottage Acquisition Scales forListening, Language & Speech

Analysis, based on a variety ofdiscourse skills, sentence forms, nounphrases, and subordination; and

•Woodcock-Johnson III, anassessment used for follow-up ofpreschool graduates in earlyelementary schools as well as at thebeginning and end of the academicyear for all students.

Success for Our Students!Moving Up with ExpectationsA follow-up study was conducted withthree of our preschool graduates upontheir entering elementary school, andeach of the students demonstratedoverall reading levels at or above theirage levels (Wang, Spychala, Harris, &Oetting, 2013). These three students—who had varying degrees of hearing loss,usage of amplification, and modes ofcommunication—demonstrated at leastsome use of phonemic awareness andphonics skills, and these skills weresustained in early elementary school,although their elementary schoolteachers used various reading programs.

For instance, when tested upon entryinto preschool, Emily*, who had a mildhearing loss, and Kristen, who used acochlear implant and a hearing aid,scored above average and/or average on

language- and print-based earlyreading skills compared with

their same-age hearingpeers, though eachperformed poorly onsound-based tasks. BothEmily and Kristenmade markedimprovement and

demonstrated readingskills approximately one

grade above their grade levelin early elementary school.

Nancy, with an unaided centralhearing loss and a severe languagedisorder, started our program withbelow average and significantly belowaverage scores on language- and print-based tasks, and she could not completeany sound-based tasks. Nancy required alonger time to respond to interventions

than her peers, but eventually she wasable to demonstrate an age-appropriatereading level. In early elementary school,she showed evidence of phonemicawareness and phonics skills, and sheeven performed at a slightly higher levelthan her hearing peers on some phonicstasks.

High ExpectationsAn Impact that ContinuesThe potentially transformative powergenerated from the expectations of theteachers and parents can have a massiveimpact on the development of children,particularly those who are deaf or hard ofhearing. With high expectations forpreschool deaf and hard of hearingchildren, our program at Missouri StateUniversity embraces effectiveinstructional strategies and multi-mediatechnology to meet the individual needsof each child and to ensure age-appropriate academic development onpar with that of their hearing peers. Thisis accomplished in an environment thatradiates a belief in the learning potentialof all children and embraces highexpectations for all. Our experiencedemonstrates that high expectations leadto high performance.

*All students’ names in this article arepseudonyms.

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References

SRA/McGraw-Hill. (2007). Early readingtutor. Columbus, OH: McGraw-HillEducation.

SRA/McGraw-Hill. (2008). Readingmastery I. Columbus, OH: McGraw-HillEducation.

Wang, Y., Spychala, H., Harris, R., &Oetting, T. (2013). The effectiveness of aphonics-based early intervention for deafand hard of hearing preschool children andits possible impact on reading skills inelementary school: A case study. AmericanAnnals of the Deaf, 158(2), 107-120.