When thinking of your classroom, what components of reading and writing do you feel are important to teach and how will you teach them? 

I feel like anything you can teach about reading and writing should be taught in  your classroom. I don't feel like there are any more important parts than others. I definitely want to assess where the child is on their reading level and make a plan for how to help them build their reading skills no matter where they are. You need to make sure that you are able to teach phonemic awareness, phonics, the alphabet, vocabulary and comprehension. All of these need to be worked on in a direct teaching way for children who have hearing loss so that they can effectively read on their grade level. I will use things like visual phonics, running records, re-reading,  leveled reading programs, and then all kinds of activities to help them build skills in comprehension, fluency, etc. You can also use reading to work on all kinds of other academic areas such as auditory memory/comprehension, speech, writing, note taking, and many many other things. Reading and writing are very intertwined just as we discussed in class. They are hard to separate and they are both so very important. They are also areas where our children with hearing loss often need extra instruction and practice so they are areas that we as deaf educators really need to work on. They are also very concrete academic areas that allow you to succeed in other academic areas and they are basic life skills that the children need to have for not only the progressive school grades but for transitioning into college, training programs and jobs.