To Fingerspell or Not to Fingerspell..‪.‬

If you knew how to effectively contribute to the literacy of Deaf people, would you do it?  Fingerspelling is widely believed to be a means for introducing new written-language vocabulary to Deaf people.  Our perspective, gained from personal and observed experiences within the Deaf community, is that fingerspelling is more accurately understood as a mechanism for recalling or retrieving written-language vocabulary.  By combining the printed word with fingerspelling, interpreters can restore the literacy mechanisms that were used by the Deaf community prior to the current age of Educational Interpreting.