Voice: Most of the paper is written in first person. But, I think the “Searching” section may be in third person, with some exceptions in the second and third paragraph.

Audience: Anyone interested in the reading skills of hearing impaired children and how cochlear implants can help.

Say Back: The author is saying that all children, both hearing and hearing impaired, learn to read the same way. Two of the five skills required for a child to learn how to read are based on the auditory pathway; the other three skills branch off of these skills.
Reading development can also be described in 5 stages, where hearing impaired children usually don’t progress pass stage three. Cochlear implants can make it possible for hearing impaired children to improve their reading skills and, in some cases, demonstrate age appropriate literacy skills. However, the age of implantation has an effect on the child’s literacy skills. Not all research supports this theory but as resources improve, so does our ability to help hearing impaired children attain appropriate reading skills.

Bless: You do a great job of explaining concepts and using common terminology. I think anyone interested in cochlear implants and reading would be able to read this, understand it, and benefit from it.

Address: I’m pretty sure you included your research and foundational questions, but I think it would help if you stated “I hope to answer the following questions…” or something like that.

Good job! It’s a very interesting subject. I do have a soft spot for implants though. =) Let me know if this doesn’t make sense.

Voice: The introduction was written in 1st person, the searching section was written in 3rd person with a few 1st person sentences, and the conclusion was written in 1st person.

Audience: This piece was written for those interested in how age at which a child receives a cochlear implant impacts their reading acquisition. Parents, educators, speech pathologists, audiologists, or researchers would all benefit from reading this paper.

Say Back: The author is basically saying that the earlier a child receives a cochlear implant, the more successful they are in learning to read.

Bless: I love how you chose this topic in order to perhaps find your “niche” as you call it. It’s a very interesting paper and although it has a lot of varied research, you presented it in an easy-to-read manner.

Address: In the eighth paragraph under “searching” you lead into a study done that refuted the studies discussed in the paragraphs before. “Although the previous study showed potential for those implanted early in life, implanted children are often not catching up with their hearing classmates when reading (Geers, 2003).” Perhaps you could have more of a transition such as, “however, in a study performed by Geers, etc…) or you could say “Although the previous study showed potential for those implanted early in life, in a study performed by Geers, etc…” or something to that effect.

Remember to just ask if none of this makes sense or you just want to clarify what I said.

You wrote:

I now see that the purpose of this article is to point out that there is a lot more to digital literacy than simply being able to work a computer.

This observation is critical – it’s not just about the machinery or the software (the tools). It’s also about content – and I think you’re close to saying that the tools and the content are interdependent. Nice work!

KLM