Ms. Mathisen's DHH Class

About me

Hello! I am a teacher of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing who also identifies as a capital "D" Deaf/Hard of Hearing adult.  I have had taught Deaf and Hard of Hearing across all grade levels from preschool to High School since 2009. I also taught American Sign Language for World Languages and/or an interpreting program at the college and high school levels.

One thing that I have learned through my experience as a teacher, I have a passion for American Sign Language and how it is important to our young charges to acquire meaningful language input. Language is precedence for academics. 

My parents first found out that I was deaf when I was at the age of three, running through a Toys R Us and not responding. I was diagnosed with a bilateral sensori-neural  severe to profound hearing loss.  Through sign language, I was able to learn spoken language through fifteen years of speech therapy. I do not let my hearing loss be an obstacle or challenge in my life. 

I hold the following degrees:

M.Ed in Education; Educational Leadership: Concordia University-Portland, Oregon

B.A. Deaf and Hard of Hearing Education: MacMurray College- Jacksonville, IL

Associates in Science: Moraine Valley Community College- Palos Hills, IL

Educational Support:

This class will teach students Reading and  English grammar at their instructional level. Students will build their signacy skills in American Sign Language for both social and academic language. They will start out at the initial level of writing sentences and build  the skills to write paragraphs. In addition to teacher modeled-practices, they will write or draw on personal experiences in creating personal  narratives, argument essays, research and informational reports. 

In class we will build vocabulary acquisition,  reading comprehension skills through reading short stories and books at student’s instructional level.  

Reading Strategies may include activating background (prior) knowledge, questioning, analyzing text structure, visualization, and summarizing), comprehension skills, inferring, and monitoring/clarifying.

Comprehension Skills may include: main idea and details, Problem and Solution, cause and effect, compare and contrast,  author’s purpose, fact/opinion,  elements of literature (plot, character, setting, conflict, theme, and point of view) dialogue and climax), genre,  and sequencing.

  

  Want to Learn Sign Language or need more information about Deaf/Hard of Hearing?