sábado, 2 de novembro de 2013

Gallaudet University: VL2 Storybook App Launch Celebration Highlights



Publicado em 05/02/2013
On Monday, February 4th, Gallaudet University's own Visual Language and Visual Learning (VL2) center launched an exciting app (available on iOS-iPad and iPad Mini) for early and emerging readers.

App Summary:
*Interactive and bilingual ASL/English storybook app designed for visual learners, especially deaf children
*Original story, first developed through ASL storytelling and then told through English print
*Available on the App Store
*Design principles are based on research foundations, namely the science of learning on visual language and learning

Story:
The Baobab is an original story about a curious little girl who goes on a search for a rare, delicious fruit growing from an ancient baobab tree. She encounters many different animals and finds herself in a peculiar situation! Children will enjoy the daring little girl's mishaps and adventures, the rich ASL storytelling, and the captivating watercolor illustrations.

Key Research Principles:
The benefits of bilingualism--for both hearing and deaf language learners--have become more and more apparent in recent years. We know from research that a child's early exposure to bilingualism provides fundamental advantages in cognition, language, and literacy. This finding is true for bilinguals whose languages are both spoken and for bilinguals who sign one language and read and write in another. In fact, this early bilingual advantage does not go away; research confirms that the cognitive and language benefits that come from being bilingual continue throughout the lifetime.

The new series of VL2 ASL-English storybook apps for the iPad builds upon findings from research done on deaf bilingual children. For one, we know that proficiency in a visual language, American Sign Language, has been positively correlated with English literacy and spoken language development. Opportunities that provide engagement with visual language and printed literacy place deaf children on a path towards fluent bilingualism.

By being exposed to examples of extended use of sign language (such as stories), deaf children are provided opportunities to develop cognitive flexibility and metalinguistic abilities, and these, in turn, help to facilitate the development of English literacy skills. Research from VL2 and other centers shows that early visual language experience offers far-reaching advantages for a deaf child's linguistic, communicative, cognitive, academic, literacy, and psychosocial development.

Children, parents, and educators who use this app can watch the story in ASL, read along with the English text at the bottom of the screen, and watch videos--with sound--of the translation of selected words in the text. A rich body of work in early literacy indicates that fingerspelling helps vocabulary acquisition and helps form a phonological level of language access for deaf children. The apps make use of the advantages of fingerspelling, even incorporating commonly used linking techniques such as "sandwiching," where a word is signed, then fingerspelled, and then signed once again. Because of what we know about the importance of fluent language models in the teaching of the grammar of a visual language, the storyteller in The Baobab is a fluent signer.

App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-b...
Contact:

*For information about the VL2 storybook apps: Melissa.Malzkuhn@gallaudet.edu

*For specific information about VL2: Kristen.Harmon@gallaudet.edu

*For Gallaudet Communications and Public Relations: Kaitlin.Luna@gallaudet.edu

*App Support - vl2storybook@gallaudet.edu

"Like" VL2's Facebook page, "VL2 Science of Learning Center"

Follow VL2 on Twitter (@NSFVL2) and on Tumblr (vl2.tumblr.com).

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