English grammatical rules can often be confusing. Unlike hearing students who rely on the, "does it sound right principle?" for checking their grammar, many Deaf and Hard of Hearing students need easy to remember rules to help them correctly write English. Additionally, rules that are visually distinctive will be a strong link for most DHH students.

Mnemonic devices help students remember rules. Do you remember learning the order of the planets? You probably were taught a phrase like: My very educated mother just served us nine pizzas. Each of the letters represents the name of the planet in the correct sequence (e.g. My= Mars, very= Venus, etc.). Similarly, these devices helped us recall the colors of the rainbow (ROYGBIV). Mnemonic devices that are visually based create a strong link to memory for DHH students.

​A visual mnemonic device makes sure all students have a visual representation for an English rule to help them remember when and how to use specific grammatical forms.

For example…..general time prepositions (in/on/at) can be very confusing. Without a rule to help them remember, students often omit these words in their independent writing. Through a series of lessons we teach students some basic beginning concepts for in/on/at.  An example of how to remember these rules is provided above. The visual mnemonic (i.e. the clock shown at the top of this page), helps them to remember the "rules" for using these words with time concepts. 

IMPORTANT!!!! Not all lessons have visual mnemonic devices in the curriculum! Additionally since English has exceptions, the concepts developed in this curriculum are only intended to introduce the beginning or basic level of foundational concepts.