Kimberly Wolbers

The purpose of this study is to investigate the efficacy of the Strategic and Interactive Writing Instruction (SIWI) professional development (PD) program for improving the knowledge and instructional practices of teachers and the writing and language outcomes for students in third through sixth grade who are deaf or hard of hearing (D/HH). The language experiences of children who are D/HH are extremely diverse and directly influence their writing. There is a need to identify effective progr...

Students who are deaf or hard of hearing have demonstrated little progress in literacy over the years. It is common for students who are deaf or hard of hearing to graduate high school writing and reading at an elementary level. Deaf or hard of hearing students may exhibit substantial difficulties with sentence-level writing skills, and their writing can have fewer words, more incomplete sentences, frequently omitted function words, and less complex structures compared to the writing of peer...