Literacy and Media

Hello Friends,

Welcome back to another #TogetherThursday This week we are sharing resources on literacy and media support. Now that we are living in a digital world where things have access at our fingertips, what kinds of things can be leveraged for our Deaf and Hard of Hearing children?

Visuals: No matter the age or modality your family uses, visuals are important to pair with literacy. If you are reading a book or telling a story, things like puppets, acting it out and books with beautiful colorful visuals are amazing supports for your Deaf/HH child.

For younger children if you don’t know them yet there are many free resources for songs and stories like “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” or “Old McDonald” on Youtube that you can pair with your storytelling or singing. Using any toys you already have in your home to support your songs and stories are a great benefit for your child.

  • Vooks.com has one month free of read alouds for children of many classic books which are engaging, read to them and have paired activities
  • One of my absolute favorite books that has a visual is “Hair Love”
  • Book available here (to buy
  • Short available to watch (FOR FREE with CAPTIONS)  

For older children there are many movies on streaming services that have fantastic stories that are true to the books(as we know, many of them are not true to the book), however, having Deaf/HH children access these stories either before or after with the visuals can support literacy, especially when having captions on them.

These are some of my favorites:

  • The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau Ages 8-12
  • A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket Ages 8-12
  • Matilda by Roald Dahl Ages 8-12
  • Harry Potter Series by JK Rowling Ages 9-12
  • Holes by Louis Sachar Ages 10-13
  • Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson Ages 10-13
  • Angus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison Ages 15-18
  • The Fault in our Stars by John Green Ages 15-18

Currently the biggest drive for many young adults and teens are comic books. Spiderman into the Spiderverse is an amazing piece of art, visually, artistically and is accessible to a wide variety of young teens and young adults.

There are several comics that follow Miles Morales(the new Spiderman in the Spiderverse) that are accessible across reading levels as well.

The ones recommended above are not the end all be all of great movies made from books. In addition as mentioned before there are MANY movies made from books that took a different direction. That is opportunity to discuss with your child/teen about what similarities and differences there are between the book and the movie.

I hope you and your child enjoy a literacy movie night sometime soon!

Please share a literacy movie night you’ve had with your child and what your favorite movie/book is!

We can, Together,

Ms. Leslie