About the Project

SueñaLetras is a tool that supports the literacy learning process using sign language as a bridge to reach written language. It includes a program, an instruction manual, and a transference manual and video, designed to support teachers in the process of teaching students with hearing disabilities aged 4 -12 to read and write. In addition, the program has been shown to be useful for adults and non-deaf individuals. It is open source and free to download, which extends its scope.

Sueñaletras involves integrated strategies based on sign language, alternated with the finger alphabet, written words, lip reading, and images. The consistent and redundant repetition of the explicit connection between these stimuli is termed "chaining", and has been reported to be innovative and effective to the learning of reading and writing (Perfetti & Sandak, 2000). SueñaLetras was designed as a transparent and open system that allows any community to readily generate a new version of the program according to their own sign language. The transference is mediated by a transference manual and video.

A large community has been involved in the creation and translation of the Sueñaletras project. This initiative started at CEDETI which generated an alliance with the Inter-American Development Bank to enrich and expand the scope of the project, and included an external evaluation by Gallaudet University.

To date, it has been translated for seven countries, and on each occasion several institutions, educators and deaf people have actively participated. The project therefore provides a technology created by the deaf community for the deaf community, using an evidence-based methodology and designed to be an attractive and playful means of teaching deaf people to read and write. Sueñaletras has been successfully disseminated as an educational tool in Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, Uruguay, Costa Rica, Spain (including Catalonia).