Development of literacy in two languages entails linguistic and cognitive advantages for bilingual students.

Students at Robarts School for the Deaf receive a bilingual education that promotes both American Sign Language (ASL) and English. This includes:

• Language and literacy acquisition
• Critical thinking skills and meta-linguistic awareness
• Academic success
• Positive self image and successful social interaction
• Appreciation of ASL and multi-cultural identities and heritage
• A learning environment appreciative of diversity
• American Sign Language as the first-language base for students. ASL is used as the language of dialogue, instruction and study to provide students with world knowledge that is a prerequisite for understanding English literacy
• First language proficiency in ASL, which creates teaching and learning experiences that increase the academic achievement of every student and promotes second language (English) mastery
  
• English is a language of instruction and study

Parents are involved in the literary education lives of ASL Bilingual students.

Ontario Curriculum:
The American Sign Language Curriculum and Ontario Language Curriculum work congruently, including:

• Supporting the Ontario curriculum’s goal of literacy and numeracy development
  
• Commitment to EQAO and OSSLT
• Use of formal and informal measurement and analysis of ASL and English language samples
  

Components that are studied in the ASL Curriculum:

• Study ASL structures, vocabulary, discourse, semantics, styles, and registers found in stories, poems and others (e.g., Clayton Valli’s ASL poetry works, “Cow and Rooster,” Dr. Samuel Supalla’s ASL story, “For a Decent Living”) as well as texts, lectures and interpersonal interactions
• Analysis
• Comparison
• Making judgements
• Pulling ideas together
• Other higher level thinking skills to develop meta-linguistic skills in ASL as an academic language – the grammatical knowledge of ASL
• Analysis of ASL as a repository of cultural heritage knowledge and experiences

Similarly, components of the Ontario Language Curriculum include:

• Study English structures, vocabulary, discourse, semantics, styles, and registers found in stories, poems and others (Shakespeare’s works)
  
• Analysis
  
• Comparison
  
• Making judgements
  
• Pulling ideas together
  
• Other higher level thinking skills to develop meta-linguistic skills in English as an academic language – the grammatical knowledge of English
  
• Analysis of English as a repository of cultural heritage knowledge and experiences

Instructional Strategies Using a Bilingual Approach – ASL and English Skills

• Meta-cognitive linguistic analysis: studying, comparison and contrasting of two languages
• ASL PM benchmark
• Manipulative visual language
• Cross-linguistic transfer strategies

We strive for a system of support for our students in a community that recognizes their uniqueness inclusively.