Central Institute for the Deaf

Another one of my favorite visits was to CID. Most of the kids there have hearing aids and cochlear implants, just like my friends at Moog! Mel and I got to be special guests on a day when all of the parents were coming! I felt like a little celebrity. We even got to do TWO read alouds! The first one was upstairs with the older kids ages 5-7. As we read they all raised their hands when asked who has hearing aids and who has cochlear implants. Many of them wore hearing aids before they got their CIs, just like my character does in the book. One cool thing I noticed was that when we read with kids with normal hearing, we only talk about the ear doctor a little bit, but when we read with kids with hearing loss, we get to use the big word- “audiologist.” Next we went downstairs to read with our preschool friends. I was pretty tired from meeting the first group, so I just laid down and listened to Mel read. Instead of asking questions like she usually does, Mel encouraged the younger kids to participate by helping her say things like “woof!” and “Sophie, come!”