Cindy Robles Figueroa

  Cindy Robles Figueroa is a profoundly Deaf 6th grader in Arizona, USA. Her elementary school is a public school with a mainstream program for the districts' deaf and Hard of Hearing students. Cindy is taught by Ellen Kowalczyk a Deaf instructor in the areas of Language, Reading, Social Studies, Science and Writing. Cindy goes into the mainstream for math with an interpreter. Cindy is a bright young lady that strives to achieve in all subjects. Spelling has always been her favorite subject, in fact, she masters 100% on her weekly spelling exams.  When asked if she wanted to participate in her school's spelling bee, at first she wasn't sure about it but with positive reinforcement, she decided to go for it. Having only three weeks to study 200 words from 3rd grade to 6th grade (50 words per grade) on top of her weekly classroom spelling words, she studied constantly. Cindy spent her time fingerspelling the spelling words during lunch and recess. During recess, she would run up to the classroom aide from off the playground to spell.

            In preparation for the spelling bee, Cindy's teacher worked with her with the list of selected words, reviewing both the spelling as well as the definition. One obstacle Cindy surpassed was when the word didn't have a sign. Fingerspelling the word was prohibited due to obvious reasons. So, Cindy and her teacher devoted time in developing alternate signs or signed definitions so that the competition was fair to all involved. 

Cindy and her teacher, Ellen Kowalczyk

           On the day of the spelling bee, Cindy took the stage with 25 other hearing students. Rather than take any chances of misreading her fingerspellings of the words, the rules for the contest were modified for Cindy. While the hearing students would hear the pronunciation of the word and then verbally spell it, some of the students asked for a definition or have the word put in a sentence.  However, Cindy received a word signed by her teacher, signed the word back, spelled it on a white board and then signed the word again. She never once asked for the definition of the word.

              Throughout the contest, Cindy remained calm and poised, while her teacher was a nervous wreak. In the 12th round, Cindy was 1 of 5 student left. In that round everyone spelled their word wrong, so Cindy was the finalist and she needed to correctly spell her word plus an additional word. Her winning word was fertilizer. She spelled that word right and the crowd applauded her. We are so proud of her. Way to go Cindy!

by Teachers: 
Ellen Kowalczyk
April Pullins
 

Hearing Impaired Special Ed.
Lehi Elementary

January, 2010