For every student, learning vocabulary is crucial. However, learning vocabulary is even more critical for deaf students. It is very difficult for deaf children to learn to read and write because it is not in their native language. This is why it is so important for deaf children to be immersed in a rich vocabulary environment. When you walk in a deaf classroom, there needs to be vocabulary everywhere. Many classrooms I have observed have had word labels on everything in the classroom. I really like the strategies discussed in the articles to increase vocabulary skills. I thought many of these would be great to use with deaf children. Word searches and interactive technology (e.g. the above picture of a word cloud) makes learning vocabulary fun and engaging. While reading the articles, I kept thinking of the word building activities our class discussed and how many of those activities would work great with introducing vocabulary. You can use Bananagrams and word walls to teach students how to build the words and also what the words mean.
I agree with you that rich vocabulary is important for deaf students in a classroom but I think it's good for all students in the classroom, especially the younger grades. We should be exposing our students to new words constantly to help build their vocabulary.
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