Research clearly indicates that readers who are deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) struggle with comprehension of content area text (Moores, 2001) and lack the skills associated with comprehension of these texts (e.g., connections to prior knowledge, understanding text structure/organization, attention to text features, vocabulary development, and inference) (Bringham & Hartman, 2010; Easterbrooks & Stephenson, 2006; Howell & Luckner, 2003; Marschark & Hauser, 2008; Strassman, 1997). Additionally, theories regarding the education of marginalized students, as discussed by Gee (2008), Morrell (2004), and Oakes (1985), suggest that there is a connection between how teachers perceive their students as learners and the instructional choices they make (Gee, 2008; Morrell, 2004; Oakes, 1985). The present study used instrumental case study design (Stake, 2000) to investigate the frequency, duration, and intensity of content area reading (CAR) integration in four, upper-grade deaf education social studies classrooms. The study also investigated the frequency and duration of instructional approaches used by teachers of the deaf when teaching content material.Findings from this study revealed that the two middle school teachers dedicated a larger percentage of instructional time to CAR skills than did the two participating high school teachers, and that CAR skills were primarily addressed at low levels of intensity across all four participating teachers. Background knowledge (activation of background knowledge and building of background knowledge) and content-specific vocabulary were the most commonly integrated CAR skills by all teachers. Inference and text structure were the least integrated CAR skills. Only one teacher participant integrated text structure during the study, however, it was addressed for less than 1% of instructional time, and was categorized at the lowest level of intensity.Findings also revealed that the instructional practices of three teachers favored directive instructional approaches (e.g., lecture) when delivering content material. Only one teacher used instructional practice that favored a social-constructivist approach to delivering content material (e.g., discussion). Across all four teachers, questions were categorized most frequently at the knowledge and comprehension levels. Few higher-level questions (e.g., analysis, synthesis, evaluation) were asked by teachers during instruction.Interviews with teachers revealed that they did not view themselves as teachers of reading, and that pressures from state mandates in addition to curriculum requirements limited the types of activities used to teach content material. Teachers expressed concerns regarding their students’ abilities to read and learn content material from text. Additionally, they expressed concerns regarding their students’ abilities with expressive and receptive language, specifically academic language.
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