How to Sign St. Patrick's Day ASL Signs?

Learn how to sign St. Patrick's Day Signs with SignShine.

 

ASL Signs, American Sign Language Signs. 

 

Fun, interactive and easy to sign with Mara:

• Happy Saint Patrick's Day
• Green
• Rainbow
• Gold
• Luck

 

Happy Saint Patrick's Day from SignShine®!

 

Use Sign Language and Books to Potty Train Your Baby and Toddler

When your toddler is showing signs of being ready to use the toilet - an awareness of being soiled, hiding in his favorite corner to have privacy while he has his bowel movement, a fascination with watching himself tinkle or watching daddy tinkle - it’s a good idea to begin reading books about going to the toilet. There are many books about going to the bathroom, but the ones that focus on normalizing the defecation and urination process in all people and animals, helps the toddler realize that he is just like everyone else. The sign for going to the bathroom is simply the letter ‘t’ and shaking it. While there are many words that we use to mean ‘going to the bathroom’ - ‘poo poo’, ‘pee pee’, ‘bathroom’, ‘potty’, ‘wee wee’, ‘doo doo’, etc. - there is just one sign that you use to mean ‘potty’. Having multiple words or vocalizations for the one word, can be confusing. If you focus on teaching the sign for ‘potty’ through the books, and by consistently using the same simple sign every time you or your spouse use the toilet, every time you take him to the potty, you will have simplified the learning process, and have increased the chances the child will be able to successfully communicate the idea of using the toilet.

Babies Who Have a Means to Express Themselves Are Happier Babies

A child is naturally curious. He is born into this world with a desire to learn. If we nurture this desire by giving him a means with which he can express himself, then he will continue to find joy in learning. As we have observed in so many young babies, they are able to understand what we say to them well before they are able to talk or express themselves. And when they are unable to express themselves, they often become frustrated. In other words, their minds are actually processing the language they hear and creating thoughts, yet their vocal chords are still developing and so they are limited in how they may express themselves. By introducing sign language to your baby, you are enabling your child to now have a means through which he may express himself; hence, the joy of learning, the joy of being understood, and the feeling of respect and empowerment continue to grow.

Using Sign Language to Tell a Story is a Wonderful Way to captivate the young listener.

So many of today’s children rely on film or video to hold their interest. By encouraging children to listen to a story, you are helping the child develop sharper, more accurate and effective listening skills. Start off with short stories that will captivate their interest. Include the listener as the protagonist. Add humor, or suspense and allow the listener’s imagination to create and embellish as his mind absorbs the words. Add sign language as a tool to help engage the listener. Children are captivated by the visual language. Instead of providing the picture to the child through videos and film, use sign language to allow the listener to engage with the storyteller and create the visual picture in his/her own mind. Not only does sign language help engage the listener and allow the child’s imagination to create, but it also helps the listener retain the information.

In summary, by having your child simultaneously process visual and auditory languages, you will be helping him/her to develop sharper listening skills, become more imaginative, and develop ways to better remember the details of the story.

Sign Language Requires that One Communicate Without Multitasking

I had a parent share with me that one of the hardest part of signing is that you actually have to use your hands and eyes to communicate and most of the time we're too busy to have our hands and eyes free. We are so used to holding our phones and ipads in our hands, that we often don’t have time or the ability to use our hands to communicate. Our eyes are often so focussed on the screens in our lives that we run the risk of losing the ever critical skill of eye contact. We are so busy doing things and multitasking while with our babies and children, that we often don’t take the time to just focus on communicating with our babies. The beauty of sign language is just that...it requires that you put other things down, and give that quality time that involves your undivided attention to your child.

By exposing our children to sign language, we are exposing them to a more effective way of communicating - one that incorporates body language and facial expressions. Studies have shown that listeners learn from nonverbal cues most often, especially in deciphering feelings and attitudes (Mehrabian, 1972). When our body language conflicts with our words, effective communicators are able to focus on the nonverbal messages.

Sign Language Can Be The Foundation for Good Communication Skills

The foundation of good communication:

Eye contact is a subtle, but very critical aspect of communication. If a person has good eye contact, the chances of him developing communication skills is much improved. When you give your baby good eye contact, you are not only connecting with him in a beautiful way, but you then are a role model for him as well. We want our babies to understand the notion that one can communicate a lot through one’s eyes and through one’s facial expressions.

By encouraging your baby to give good eye contact, you are establishing the foundation for sign language as well as effective auditory communication. It is very difficult to learn sign language without eye contact. This is one of the primary beauties of this particular mode of communication. With an auditory language such as our spoken English, many people now try and communicate while looking at their phones, or their ipads, or televisions. When you do not make eye contact, and keep your eyes looking at the task at hand, you allow your face to remain expressionless. Then when you do look up and try to communicate with the same expressionless face, you lose the ability to connect with the other person. Effective communicators are good at giving eye contact, good at using their bodies, hands and facial expressions, and are good at receiving information from others through the eyes, hands, faces and bodies of others. You develop speech without the use of your eyes, but it is much more difficult to develop sign language without the use of your eyes. Sign language naturally helps babies become effective communicators.

Transparency and Babies' Understanding of How Language Works

In sign language, nearly all the signs for body parts are made by pointing to the specific body part. For example, 'nose', 'eyes', 'mouth', 'arm', 'hair', 'ear', are all signed by pointing to the specific body part. These body parts represent the meaning of transparent. You will often see a baby point to his various body parts when you ask him/her, ‘Where is your nose? Where is your mouth?” This is an example of the beauty of a language that has signs that are transparent and/or iconic. When the sign actually looks like the meaning of the word, or in this case is the body part, it is easier for a baby to process and comprehend the way language works. So when a baby points to objects or body parts, s/he is actually saying ‘this is my nose’. This is visual transparency.

When a baby learns the sounds that animals make, this is auditory transparency. He actually hears the cat say 'meow' or the dog say 'woof woof', so s/he often assigns those corresponding sounds to those respective animals. Sign language takes these animals and assigns a visual sign that is closely linked to the meaning of the animal, again reinforcing the benefits of learning sign language which may initially consist of many visually transparent or iconic signs.

Sign Language Helps Children to be Effective Communicators

In this day and age when so many of our children are overexposed to television, video games, computers and cell phones, children run the risk of never developing the ability to be effective communicators. Sign language encourages children to make eye contact, to be aware of subtle facial expressions, and bodily gestures and to be better listeners - all important elements to effective and successful communication. By teaching your children sign language, you are giving them the gift of effective communication while at the same time having tons of fun.

The benefits of signing are endless. Sign language can enhance the bond between parent and child, and promote early communication. By teaching your baby sign language you are empowering your child with a means with which to communicate his thoughts. A baby’s brain is ready for language much earlier than the vocal chords are ready to speak. In other words, a baby understands and can communicate his needs and desires if you provide him with a mode of communication that is not reliant on vocal chords. Sign language empowers babies to express their feelings and needs, therefore reducing frustration and promoting comprehension, which leads to a much happier and respectful relationship between parent and child.

Increased Awareness and Sign Language

When asked what she liked learning from sign language class, one of the moms responded that she now has a greater appreciation for ‘observing’ . She felt that had she not learned sign language, there are a lot of subtle cues that she would would have missed in her baby’s efforts to communicate. Now she is hyper aware of how much information gets expressed from her baby’s eyes - whether they are big and round, or small and closed, whether the eye brows are raised or wrinkled - these are parts of signs that would typically be missed in a baby’s early efforts to communicate meaning. Likewise, a baby who learns to sign will also be more in tune with the subtle cues the parents are including in their nonverbal communication. For example, you will often see a baby who is learning to sign, raise his eyebrows and shoulders, and tilt his head in an effort to express "I don't know". This awareness on the part of both baby and parent contributes to increased bonding and understanding in a special relationship.

Be Aware of Gestures and Eye Contact

One of the moms in my Baby SignShine class shared with me that her little one had been signing ‘milk’ for days before they realized that she was signing ‘milk’. Her baby just turned one year old, and is rapidly acquiring many more words. During her meal time, she would reach her arms out as if to ask to be taken out of her highchair. When her mommy realized that she was not happy with being taken out of the highchair, she suddenly realized that her child was actually trying to let her know that she wanted ‘milk’. Every time she wanted ‘milk’ she would reach out her arms and wave her fingers.

Another mom reported her baby placing his hand on his head whenever he would hear his daddy’s car parking in the garage. Then she noticed he would do that same hand on his head gesture when the phone would ring, and it would be daddy calling to say ‘hi’. Mom realized that he was anticipating daddy either coming into the room, or hearing his voice because the baby would clearly make eye contact while touching his head. Although it didn’t look exactly like the sign for ‘daddy’, it was definitely an approximation. It would have been easy for this mom to miss the sign and think that the baby was rubbing his head randomly.

When a baby is consistently using the same gestures in the same context or situation, chances are, they are using an approximation for a sign and are trying their best to communicate. It may not look exactly like the sign you have learned, but it is in fact your child trying his/her best to communicate!....Blink, and you may just miss your baby signing! Look for gestures that your baby is using over and over again in the same context, observe his/her eyes as s/he tries his/her best to make eye contact, take note if s/he seems frustrated if you are not understanding his/her efforts to approximate the sign. You may find it helpful to write down what you think is his/her approximation and be sure to share this with your spouse or nanny so that s/he can keep an eye out for such approximations. The sooner you can identify what sign s/he is attempting to use to communicate, the more empowered your child will feel, and the happier you both will be! See how Frisee and her mom are understanding one another:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gSZfW4gVhI

Use these same tips for your baby’s approximations of spoken words, and you will see how rapidly s/he will be able to communicate using speech in addition to her sign. Have fun!

Sign Language Can Help Children Learn to Read

Teaching your baby sign language will actually improve his/her ability to learn to read.

Reading is a complex process that requires the reader’s brain to develop a multitude of neural pathways. The more developed those pathways, the greater the chances the reader will be able to automatize the act of reading. As the many pathways become fully developed, the reader becomes a fluent reader, and comprehension is possible.

A reader has to transfer the visual information of print into phonological information that is familiar to him from the auditory language that he hears daily in order to make meaning out of the print that he is processing. But a reader who has learned sign language, which is spatially visual, has the advantage of having developed neural pathways that connect the visual with language, or meaning. In other words, the baby who has learned sign language has a jumpstart on his ability to transfer visual information into meaningful linguistic information, relevant and critical to reading. He already understands that language or visual symbols convey meaning.

A child whose only exposure to language is auditory begins his development of the neural pathways at a much later age. The child who only knows auditory language must learn to take visual information (print) and make those visual symbols meaningful.

yet another benefit...

we all know there are so many benefits to signing, right?   countless, countless, benefits!  from reducing frustration, to higher vocabulary, to better social skills...the list is endless.

well, just recently, i discovered yet another benefit.  i'm not quite sure how to put it in words, yet, but i will do my best.

i was showing my son a picture of a police car, and i said to him, "look, it's a police car".  he looked at me, and signed "please" and said "please car".  huh.

a couple days later, we were squeezing limes into our water.  and i said, "do you want some lime water".  he looked at me and signed "lion".  alrighty.

what just happened for me, was i got a glimpse into my little guy's head.  i got a chance to understand what he's hearing.  how he understands what i'm saying to him.  sure, the words aren't quite right, but it shows me how what i'm saying gets processed through his little mind.  all these new words.  he takes it in, but has to filter it through what he already has in that little mind of his.  and sometimes it sticks, sometimes it's connected to something else.  whatever happens, had he not had signs, i could easily assume that a) it's going in one ear and out the other  or b) he understands exactly what i'm saying.

however, with his signs, i now realize that it's not just a) or b).  what is sometimes going on is that he does hear what i'm teaching him, but he also is working things out.  so, for right now, in his mind "please cars" drive around, and we drink "lion water."  and as he works it all out in his mind, i'm ok with that :)