Playing by Sight
A human-interest article about a deaf teenage girl who plays soccer and the team that learned to communicate with her using signs.
Tap any word to hear it · dotted words have a definition in the glossary
🎧 Listen
1In Haifa, sixteen-year-old Lily Ben-Ami runs across the field, calls for the ball with a wave of her hand and scores. Her teammates hug her and celebrate loudly. Lily cannot hear their . She has been since birth, but on the soccer field, she says, she feels completely at home.
2Lily started playing when she was seven, with her older brothers in the park near their house. 'They never treated me differently,' she remembers. When she was ten, she joined a local girls' team. It was the first real team she had played for, and every other player on it could hear.
3At the beginning, there were problems. In soccer, players often shout to each other: 'Pass!', 'Behind you!', 'Watch out!' Lily missed all of these . The referee's was another difficulty. Several times she continued running with the ball after the game had stopped, and the other players thought she was the rules.
4Her coach, Ronit, decided that the team would instead of asking Lily to change. She taught all the players a few simple signs, such as a raised fist for 'stop' and two fingers pointing for 'pass to the left'. She also began holding up a bright yellow flag whenever she blew the . 'Very soon, the signs helped everyone,' Ronit explains. 'In a noisy stadium, even players who hear perfectly can't hear each other. Signs work in any noise.'
5Lily believes that being has also made her a better player. 'I can't on sounds, so I watch all the time,' she says. 'I see where people are looking and where they are going to move.'
6Today Lily dreams of playing for a national team. Her advice to other young people with is simple: 'Don't wait for the world to be perfect. Find people who are ready to meet you .'
📘 Glossary
- cheers - shouts of happiness or support
- deaf - not able to hear
- warnings - calls that tell you about danger
- referee - the person who controls a sports game
- whistle - a small tool that makes a loud, high sound
- ignoring - paying no attention to something
- adapt - to change in order to fit a new situation
- depend - to rely on something
- disabilities - conditions that make some things harder to do
- halfway - in the middle of the way between two points
Questions
Finding details
1. How did Lily's brothers treat her when they played together?Reference words
2. What does the word 'It' in the sentence 'It was the first real team she had played for' (paragraph 2) refer to?Finding details
3. Give TWO difficulties that Lily had when she joined the team.Making inferences
4. Why did the other players think Lily was ignoring the rules?Word meaning
5. The word 'adapt' in paragraph 4 means ____.Finding details
6. What did Ronit do every time she blew the whistle?Making inferences
7. According to Ronit, why did the signs help the whole team, not only Lily?Finding details
8. Copy the words from paragraph 5 that explain why Lily watches the game all the time.Main idea
9. What is the main idea of the article?
✍️ Writing task
Lily's coach changed the way the team communicated so that everyone could play. Write about one thing your school or class could change to make it easier for every student to take part. Explain your idea and why it would help.
80–100 words
0 words
Answer every question to get a score (0/9)