Summary:
• Interactive and bilingual ASL/English storybook app designed for visual learners, especially deaf children between the ages of 3 and 7, and their families.
• Based on a classic Russian story, the app covers storytelling in sign language and print.
Synopsis:
The classic Russian folk tale “Teremok” takes on new life as a tool for bilingual education of deaf and hard of hearing children! Through this story of a group of animals who find and make a home out of a cottage in the woods, the young reader can achieve early exposure to bilingualism and improve their language and literacy development.
• U.S. Project Directors: Robert Siebert and Melissa Malzkuhn
• Russia Project Directors: Alla Mallabiu and Zoya Boytseva
• Illustrator: Alexei Simonov
• Storytellers: Betsie Marie Kulikov (ASL) and Vera Shamaeva (RSL)
• Video Production: CSD Creative
• App Production: Melissa Malzkuhn, with special thanks to Yiqiao Wang
• In partnership with: Ya Tebya Slyshu
Special thanks to Dr. Melissa Herzig and Melissa Malzkuhn of the National Science Foundation Science of Learning Center on Visual Language and Visual Learning at Gallaudet University.
This project was made possible thanks to the support of the U.S-Russia Peer-to-Peer Dialogue Program led by the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, Russia.